The Wicked Ground
by Mitya Shostak
Summary: When a major earthquake rocks an industrialized Mossflower Country, it is up to the citizens of Redwall and surrounding communities to figure out why it happened and how to recover from it. I trample canon like crazy here, just so you know.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Though the evening sky was clear and bright with watercolor pinks and golds, the air still smelled of rain -- neither impending nor threatening, but rather a warm assurance of previously-fallen water mixed with clay and loam and the naturally-composting forest groundcover rising back up in the lingering chill of early spring. It was a nearly tangible scent, though a welcome one. Its wisps and tendrils seemed to creep deliberately out of the ground in order to alert any creature with open senses that the earth should not be taken as a given and ignored, but rather that it was just as much a breathing entity as anything occupying it, a living being in itself.

Brother Andreas stood on the walltop of Redwall Abbey, leaning lightly against the slant of the Gatehouse roof, allowing and welcoming the earth's good graces to permeate all of his senses. Cool and light breezes rippled through his well-kempt chestnut-brown fur and flirted with the trail of his tie and the hems of his suit coat. His own breathing in of the earth's exhalations left the impression of a taste of newly-opened flowers on his tongue. And his eyes, pupils wide against the bright brown of his irises, both reflected Nature's latest firmamental art show and trailed the path of a narrow column of gray smoke as it lazily tracked northeastward.

Despite his duties as Recorder requiring him to have off-paw knowledge of timetables and routes, despite the diagrams and blueprints kept in the Archives, and despite the certain mechanical understanding that comes with having read these things, Andreas was still leery of the trains. His parents had told him when he was young about these incredible things that came into being in _their_ childhoods, and they spoke in amazement about how these brought distances closer, made the harder-to-reach more attainable, made the whole world more concise and less mysterious. But Andreas was not inclined to agree so easily. He found the straight column of smoke, even in its picturesqueness, to be at odds with Nature's plans for the sky, and he thought of the neat straight lines of track as being painfully inorganic, slicing across the gentle curves and irregular edges of Mossflower Woods and beyond. But mostly, the marten felt that zipping by things on a train meant missing the details and intricacies that were so often worth chronicling. For all the world's advances, this should be the time to look closer, not to pass by. Important things could get lost in the blur out the window.

A low whistled chord toned through the air from the direction of the gray smoke, and Andreas' ears perked forward. The sound itself was the least of his objections, save for the fact that he had never heard a whistle from_ that particular train _from Redwall before. The route that actually brought travelers closest to the old Abbey had an entirely different timetable, and the evening northeast was never more than a visual cue. The marten bit his lower lip in confused concentration, maintaining this silent pose for quite a while before coming to any sort of a conclusion.

The insects were missing, he realized. The usual ambient counterpoint of bees, flies, gnats, and crickets was unexplainably but undoubtedly absent, and Andreas could only furrow his brown in vain in search of a logical reason for the gap. Furthermore, his frustration was compounded by the fact that it had taken him so long to notice those missing voices, no matter how small their sources may be. The loss of natural detail to the manifestation of mechanical science, even in his own mind! The Recorder shook his head, descended slowly from the walltop, and pushed his way past the old wooden door into the Gatehouse.

The oldest records in Redwall's Gatehouse, dating back far enough that one could make a comprehensive linguistic study between them and the most current records, were full of such minute details on flora and fauna, but just as Redwall Abbey itself had changed purpose from being a self-contained center of life in a wide wilderness to the government-and-cultural historical landmark center of a land with towns tucked between its indigenous trees, it was no longer the responsibility of the Recorder to chronicle any but the most major of natural occurrences and discoveries. Words had fallen out of use between the medieval and contemporary records for reasons entirely unrelated to linguistic development, and the definition of important with regards to subject matter had changed drastically. Minutes of council sessions, political debates and decisions, charters for new towns, and future railroad routes had simply superceded the record of circadian rhythms.

Andreas wrote it down anyway, in a neat line of blue ink on the smooth cream paper of a small black book that was his own property rather than that of the state. The age of the Recorder as editorialist had also gone by the wayside several ages ago, though this was one case to which Andreas did not object. When Redwall was a contained entity, the historian's life was naturally part of the small history within, but with expansion, the individual was afforded more privacy.

The marten shut his book and stowed it carefully in the shallow drawer of his desk, exchanging it for a larger cloth-and-cardboard-bound volume taken off the end of the shelf of records. Tucking this under his arm, he abandoned the Gatehouse to head for the main Abbey building. While he had spent many a calm hour blissfully enjoying independent reading time in those ancient spirit-laden halls, the night that was to follow this insect-free evening was not one that could be filled with reading accounts of past arthropod behavior. Rather, it was a night that would soon be filled by quite a different set of sounds, about which Andreas was fully expected to write.

The denizens of Mossflower Country still called it Nameday, though this designation was just as much a relic as the fact that the polite forms of address for appointed and elected officials remained Brother, Sister, Friar, Abbot, and so on. What had started as a genuinely seasonal celebration had evolved into a once-yearly multi-day extravaganza, resplendent with organized events of all sorts ranging from sport tournaments to high art performances to gala balls. The most prominent and affluent gathered in Redwall itself each year for the opening night festivities and were treated to a feast in the finest old tradition, followed by a full night of high-class extravagance.

Food had already been set out, and Andreas, narrow and lanky though he was, chose that time, when all other creatures would be condensed in one room, to make his rooftop ruminations. He savored that last window of quiet, knowing that there would be food to savor later, no matter how many hares might be present at the feast. The quality and quantity of the food could always be taken for granted in the records, but not so the chosen entertainment: Thus, the recorder dutifully brought the latest volume of records along with him. He would have preferred to merely watch and enjoy the production without worrying about duty interfering with art. But, he reminded himself, he also preferred writing about insects and leaves to trains and telegraphs! Chuckling inwardly at his own backwardness, Andreas pushed his way into the Great Hall of Redwall Abbey.


	2. Chapter 2

The Hall was illuminated by an entirely different sort of brilliance from the sunset. Candles set up at all levels and angles throughout the room caught in the newly-cleaned stained glass windows and cast geometrical impressions of their jewel tones against the interior red sandstone. This light in turn dappled over a vast throng of festive life, catching in the folds of a wide satin skirt or off the beads in a flashy necklace, streaking a starched white frock with bands of pastel color, alighting in many an eye marked with merriment, and highlight the edge of many a piece of cutlery as the revelers shoved food into their mouths.

The tables were mostly cleared already, though with minimal assistance from volunteer helpers to that point. The hares in particular, their dress uniforms somewhat defiled by spots of gravy or errant vegetables, knew that if one were to get the freshest helping of the next batch, one would do well to bring the empty pans and dishes to the kitchen oneself. This exchange ground itself to a halt and the busbeasts began their work in earnest as a middle-aged female badger rose from the end of the table furthest from the main doors and climbed onto a stage that had been erected at the very end of the long room.

Andreas quietly slipped into an empty chair next to the badger's recently abandoned one and looked toward the stage, opening to his record book and poising the nib of his pen with practiced elegance.

Though she was officially more of a minister of external relations, everybeast still referred to Ruta as the Badger Mother of Redwall – just as the leader of internal life and policy was still an Abbot or an Abbess, regardless of the discrepancy in meaning with the origin of the term. And this was really not a stretch for Ruta in any regard. Her black and white stripes stood out regally against the deep green velvet curtains separating the contents of the stage from its audience, and her warmly protective contralto rang through the hall in a manner that seemed to pull all who listened into her guarding embrace.

But tonight was not a night to be guarded, and Ruta opened her solid paws wide. "Good evening, citizens of Mossflower! Good Nameday to you!"

Applause arose through the hall, mushed into a low rumble by the acoustics, the opposite of the almost pointillistic lighting. Ruta continued, "As you know, it has been our long tradition to provide only the most captivating shows for you on occasions such as these. Well, if I may be so bold, I venture to say that we have outdone ourselves this year!"

The applause rippled through the crowd for a second time, punctuated by the mildly-intoxicated jabbering protests of a performer from years past. Ruta lowered one paw as if clamping a lid on something heavy but fragile. "Those of you attuned to the arts will know these names, and those who have never heard of these creatures before should perhaps be even more pleasantly surprised by this evening's performance! As part of their seasonal tour, the Grand Opera has chosen to celebrate Nameday with us, presenting the latest work by Lascala and starring renowned soprano Crysantema and legendary tenor Enruso!"

Applause started to well up for a third time as Ruta left the stage, but it was cut short by the opening chords of a moderately-sized orchestra jammed into a notably-small space to the side of the stage. This music was soft and almost floral, evocative of a world unfathomably far away from and unlike Mossflower Country. Toward the end of the extended overture, the heavy green curtains parted with the slightly-too-loud clank of pulleys, revealing a set that no longer felt so exotic because the music had set it up so well in advance.

The stoat tenor Enruso portrayed a soldier stationed in a foreign land who aimed to profit off his post in as many ways of possible, from fine artworks to spices to women. Though the primo uomo's belly hung over his polished black uniform belt more than would be tolerated in the actual military service, the sheer carrying power and control he had with his brazen and unmistakable voice served to overcome any physical discrepancies between singer and role. The squirrel soprano Crysantema played opposite Enruso as his eventual bride, swathed in silks, her features exoticised by makeup, her clear fine voice perhaps a bit too refined to realistically suit somebeast the age of her character.

In the first act, the soldier chats with a fellow officer, played by a warm-toned rat baritone, about his aims. The officer regards these plans as a joking ambition until a foreign beast who identifies himself as a marriage arranger, hammed up by a spry otter tenor, shows up with specific prospects for the soldier. He says that he knows a young maiden with connections to the high court who is also quite taken with the soldiers culture. Despite the arranger's commission fee, the soldier readily agrees to the introduction. As is the way in such stories, the two leads fall in love instantaneously, despite warnings from a delightfully ominous mole bass as the girl's father. The first act culminates in a sublime and extended love duet, delicate and sensuous, which Enruso and Crysantema enacted with such perfectly nuanced interaction and blending that there were no doubts as to why Lascala had composed these roles with them in mind.

By the second act, the solder has gone back to his own land and the bride has given birth to a child, an obvious blend of the two races and not looked upon well by either. For all these outcasting labels, though, the bride remains optimistic and eagerly awaits the return of her husband. She spends much of the act discussing what this means and how she will prepare for it with her loyal handmaiden, a role here sung by a fresh young mouse mezzo-soprano named Jacinth. The second act finishes out with a rarity in the operatic repertoire – a delicate duet between the two female roles, during which they decorate the whole scene with fresh flowers for the soldier's imminent return. Peerless though Crysantema was, the young mousemaid complimented her admirably, exhibiting a talent that, with further refinement, could have easily reached such heights as well. The duo further delighted the audience here by leaving the stage proper and weaving through the first few rows of audience, showering them with fresh-cut blooms from the new Mossflower spring.

The third act opens with the soldier reentering the scene with a female from his own country, an affair that is fully allowable within the marriage laws of the day. The exotic first bride is supposed to have a riveting and soul-straining aria about betrayal by an individual and by a trusted culture as a whole, but it never came that night. Instead, Jacinth, playing the ever-present though intendedly-silent handmaiden, erupted with a string of piercing shrieks, high enough in register to rival the climactic notes of any soprano aria.

At first, the audience in Redwall's Great Hall took it for part of the show and placed their attention all the more anxiously on the stage, but as the shrieking persisted, the music groaned to a halt and Crysantema, fire in her eyes and all characterization of the disadvantaged innocent bride gone, approached Jacinth and smacked her full in the face, changing the shrieking into a low keening.

"You'll never take my aria!" the squirrel sniped, flouncing huffily off the stage and toward the individual dressing areas down by Cavern Hole.

The audience began to murmur instantly about this highest degree of scandal, but their eyes and ears were brought back to the sage as the stricken mousemaid shook her head and sat up, staring unseeingly out at the crowd. "Fingers in the ground," she declared, voice a low tremor, transfixing all who listened. "Fingers in the ground, moving stretching, crumbling. Swords, the sword, falling, straight edge falling, cutting, cleaving scraping…" The speed of the mad utterances increased with each word. "Don't let them near me, don't let them touch me, don't let them cut me, don't let them shake me! No swords! No no no! No fingers in the ground!" With this last crescendoed flurry, Jacinth inhaled tempestuously and passed out cold on the stage.

With merciful efficiency, particularly considering the equally merciful lack of practice at such things, a male hedgehog, a male weasel, an older female mouse, and a female ferret just as young as the stricken singer bounded onto the stage and gently lifted the unconscious form between them, carrying her as fast as gentleness would allow to the Abbey's Infirmary.

All murmuring ceased, as eerie and unnatural of a silence as the lack of insect voices provided earlier. Enruso, who had through all of this been standing speechless at the back of the stage, stepped forward and surveyed the shocked crowd. The stoat then picked up a prop dagger from the bride's dressing table, showed it to the audience, replaced it, and burst unaccompanied into a high and mournful aria about how his young flower had so tragically cut her own stem at the freshest point in her life. He did not reach the epic high note, though, as Ruta and the conductor of the orchestra simultaneously leapt onto the stage and cut the tenor off.

Maestro Liedswelt was a small and bespectacled specimen of a marten, but he was still able to manhandle the hefty Enruso off the stage. Ruta therefore stood alone, the abandoned set behind her. The Badger Mother clasped her massive forepaws together and addressed the silent assembly as evenly as possible. "Well, we've had all the excitement and drama that opera can provide us and then some." She shook her head slowly. "It is quite evident that the show has reached as much of a conclusion as we're going to get tonight. I formally dismiss you from this evening's chaos and encourage you all to sleep long and soundly – the Nameday festivities will run as planned starting tomorrow!"

The scandalized murmuring and babbling rose up again as the crowd of creatures dispersed, some out the door to their homes or nearby guesthouses and hotels, others to prime rooms in the upper levels of Redwall itself. Ruta descended from the stge with one easy step, returned to the table, and lightly placed a paw on Andreas' shoulder. "You've quite a bit more to cover tonight than you accounted for, eh?"

The marten looked at the badger, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Absolutely." He gently shut the record volume and tucked it under his arm. "This may make it more important to record than merely another Nameday gala or another show on their tour, but I think it also means that more creatures will remember it without a need to consult any written records!"

Ruta laughed softly and bid Andreas a good evening, and the two creatures departed for their quarters.

-----

Jacinth came to in an infirmary bed and was immediately jolted by the unfamiliar surroundings. The mousemaid let out a squeak of surprise and a young ferret named Aetantim, one of the four beasts who had helped to carry Jacinth to the Infirmary, rushed to her bedside. "You're awake!"

Jacinth tried to pull herself into a seated position, but Aetantim motioned for her to remain lying down. "I am."

"You sang beautifully tonight," the ferret complimented comfortingly. "I've fancied myself to be somebeast who could carry a tune, but I can barely even do that compared to what you do!"

"But what happened then?" Jacinth cut in, too worn to properly accept the compliment.

Aetantim shook her head and felt the mousemaid's forehead. "You started saying things that made no sense, and then you fainted."

"What about the shaking?"

"Shaking?"

"I don't recall saying a word, but there was shaking, everywhere around me." Jacinth shut her eyes. "It was only me?"

"Only you," Aetantim confirmed. She assumed it was some sort of seizure, but figured this would not be heartening news for the mousemaid and therefore did not voice this diagnosis. "I think it would be best if you slept properly."

Jacinth let out a soft murmur and rolled onto her side. Aetantim nodded, her own head aching with stress and exhaustion. A dim pulse of electric luminescence flashed out the infirmary window and the ferret's eyes diverted. She squinted into the renewed blackness for a moment, trying to see where it came from or even to be certain that it had happened at all. But then she caught herself and shook her head, reminding herself that one should not be making diversions when lives were possibly hanging in the balance.

-----

Down by Cavern Hole, Crysantema was engaging in her own form of hysterics. The squirrel soprano bawled in a mixture of disappointment and rage, the occasional remark about that stupid little mezzo sabotaging one of the most important shows of her career slipping out between the more unintelligible noises. The marten Maestro Liedswelt, eyes rimmed with exhaustion behind his spectacles, tried his best to assuage the prima donna's hysteria, but his energy had already been depleted by an evening of conducting and he was not gaining much ground. Enruso's remarks about how Crysantema was only going to hurt her precious voice by wailing so persistently were not helping things, regardless of how correct he was. It was not until far later in the night that these sounds subsided as well, leaving Mossflower in one of the clearest and most silent nights it had ever experienced.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The Ruddaring lay at anchor only a short distance from the Mossflower coast, bobbing gently in the calm of cool waters before storm season. The Ruddaring, despite its outposted position, was no ship of war. Rather, the solid wooden vessel served almost as a lighthouse at night, with a lantern kept shining in her crow's nest, and as a pleasant gatekeeper by day, welcoming friendly ships from neighboring lands and politely questioning that rare vessel that appeared as if it might have less than honest intentions. But in the coolness of the morning, with the first strata of colors creeping up from behind the sea, their element of surprise lost as they reflected in the deep dark water, the Ruddaring was little more than a mere buoy, playfully swaying along with the ocean's peaceful whims.

Leika Lutrovna was the master of this vessel, and though she knew full well that no ships would come to call at this time of day, she lay half awake in her bunk. The otter's eyes were partly lidded and she was not yet clear on whether she was still saving the naval battle of the century in her dreams or if she was really staring, encased in blankets, at the dark wood ceiling, the soft waves outside rocking her like a child.

Leika's eyes opened fully as a low rumbling pealed through the air and the ship started rocking profoundly on the opposite axis from the one on which the waves usually carried it. With that, the otter was on her footpaws in an instant. She grabbed her yellow raincoat from a hook on the door and leaned forward as she pushed her way outside, expecting to be battered by a brashly early spring storm.

She lifted her eyes at the permeating dryness she met upon opening he door, and they were met only with blue. Blue sky, completely clear of clouds and even free of the usual circling seabirds on their morning huts. Blue water dappled more frantically by the sun as it rose and fell in peculiar waves that seemed to move from the shore to the sea rather than the other way. The thunderlike rumbling persisted in the aural background, but there was no storm in sight.

Leika squinted and bit her lower lip in a frown, rubbing her eyes and again wondering what was dream and what was reality. Ultimately, the otter decided that she'd best write this all in the Ruddaring's log at any rate. If it were real, the appropriate records would be there later, and if it were a dream, she'd wake up again later to another blank page.

Balance secure despite the rocking of the deck, Leika Lutrovna retuned to her cabin and began to write.

-----

Brother Andreas was also up early writing. The Recorder liked to rise with the birds –the wild and more primitive beasts who took to singing as an early herald for the rising sun. Except this usual wake-up call had gone missing this morning, and the marten was only carried into a state of waking when the first vanguard of sunrays crept over the ledge of the Gatehouse window. Andreas pulled himself out of bed and dressed leisurely, his pointed ears turned to the absence of sound out his window.

In fact, he liked to do his recording work in the morning precisely because there was less noise to reckon with He'd have a night's rest to distill any notable events from the previous day into succinct and sometimes clever words, without the clamors of the coming day forcing a need to record even more before the first bit was done. But the birds were a constant and their absence provided so absolute of a silence that Andreas was not able to apply full attention to his work.

The marten dangled the nib of his pen just over the smooth clean page, his head and ears straining forward as if to make something out in the silence. When that something finally came, it was not a soft chirp or the gentle breath of wind in the trees, but rather an enveloping roar, as if the train, fueled by pure thunder, had broken free of its tracks and was ripping through the sky. With the sound, Andreas was thrown forward and backward and forward again in his chair. He reached one paw toward the vibrating desk in a futile aim for support. The pen nib in his other paw came down on the recordbook and zigzagged manically up and down until the pushing from below snapped a leg off the chair and the marten tumbled to the trembling floor.

Books tore loose from the shelves and pelted the Recorder that had so cared for them. Despite the assault from above and below, Andreas pulled himself to his footpaws by the doorhandle, threw the door open, and stumbled outside, only to be tripped up by the angrily growling earth itself. Eyes wide and teeth bared in sheer panic, Andreas scrambled away on all fours. Ripples of rising and falling soil crashed against his shins, belly, and chest, bruising, scraping, and at last knocking the wind from the marten's lungs.

He managed to turn himself sideways in order to move with the rise and flow. Looking to the side as he gasped for air in this screaming world, he could see the whole of Redwall moving up and down, cracks opening and shutting again in the sandy masonry almost as if the building was shimmering. But a shimmer is a function of light, and this spring morning was as bright and clear as any other, the sky entirely unaware of the earth's wrath.

Even when the breath returned to his lungs, Andreas remained unable to move, held in place for fear of the forces beneath him and transfixed by the image of the wall and his Gatehouse spilling over in a cascade of red dust, stone, and books.

-----

It is one of the oldest mole expressions on record that a bad premonition is felt through the digging claws. While relevant expressions exist for other species, this unique feature of moles coupled with their innate good sense caused other creatures to pay heed to this utterance.

Elsinore had used this expression many times. Often these occasions were not entirely dire and often they only turned out to be things that seemed bad in Elsinore's eyes alone, but she'd said it regardless of severity and regardless of the fact that she had never actually felt these things in her digging claws. Usually, they were pangs of second-guessing or caution that popped into her head after some thought. Occasionally, things would hit her in the gut, an immediate sinking and churning at the suggestion of something that sounded as if it could have no good outcome from the very beginning. And sometimes, it would come straight from the heart, an increase in beats-per-minute stemming from something that inherently troubled or excited the mole to her very core.

This time, Elsinore felt it in her digging claws, and all entirely in earnest. The Foremole Skoilkull was heading a crew of able diggers to clear the path for a new rail line running from Redwall to the mountains south of Salamandastron, and morning was the best time to start work. Elsinore had just shoved her claws into the dew-softened earth when she felt a series of light vibrations crawl up her arm like the shaking of a tuning fork. Perplexed but morbidly curious, she shoved the other paw's worth of claws in next to the first.

Later in life, Elsinore could never recall for certain whether she deliberately removed her digging claws from the earth in the sense of impending doom or whether this doom had already arrived and had shoved her out on its own accord. Either way, the mole tumbled backwards like a black furry bowling ball badly aimed down the alley of the unfinished railway cut.

The earth that the moles knew so well had become a writhing monster screaming in two voices at once, a low primal growl and a high shattering shriek of hard edge against hard edge. The soil beneath Elsinore's struggling form grew soft and spongelike, rainwater from days past expelled back to the surface. Elsinore scrambled with her full capacity of energy, but those sage digging claws gained no holds in the strange suspension of soil and water. The ground pulled down as it flailed about, somehow grimly deliberate in its spasms.

Elsinore swore later in life – and some of the other moles confirmed it by their own recollections – that she could see the trackbed ahead being pulled to the right before the further-softened freshly dug dirt piled in on the mole crew.

-----

A high and melodramatic shrieking emanated from Cavern Hole, different enough in register from the earth's growling, the splintering crashes of shattering stonework, and the twin bells rocking madly in tandem that it could still be heard. But this time, the sound was not coming from Crysantema. The squirrel soprano had passed out cold when the first wave of shaking had sent the entire contents of her wardrobe and dressing table flying across the room with nearly enough force to turn fabric into shrapnel.

No, this string of screams came straight from the mouth of Enruso, exercising his falsetto register far more than he ever had in voice lessons and masterclasses. The stoat sat upright in his bed and clutched his pillow tight across his chest like a security blanket, but with more claws involved. His eyes were wide and tears of terror streamed down his broad face, parting his fur and aiding the flow of drool from the corners of his gaping mouth.

Maestro Liedswelt, his own paws shaking far more than just from what the earth was providing, stumbled toward the stoat, leaving the squirrel against a shelf that had already fallen.

"My voice, my voice!" Enruso shrieked with much volume. "It's ruined my voice! I am done for! The muses of all arts chose now to say that I have not done their bidding, and they have wrought this one me, and I shall never be able to sing again!"

Liedswelt placed his paws on Enruso's shoulders, and the two moved up and down together with the earth's throes. "You're shouting," Liedswelt shouted. "Try to sing!"

The stoat opened his mouth and emitted a low gravely croak. He shook his head in dismay, but the marten glared at him, with no spectacles as a safety barrier between his eyes and their target. Even with the natural world going mad around him, Enruso knew that look and opened his mouth again, the brazen notes of the previous night's interrupted aria spilling flawlessly from his spittle-flecked lips.

The look of profound relief that crossed Enruso's face was cut terribly short by a high creaking, twisting, splintering, crashing from above. The tumbling clang of the Matthias and Methuselah bells suddenly became far more erratic, the climaxed in a momentous collision of brass against stone floor, resounding as if the waves through the earth had picked up enough civilization to make their own music.

Enruso sprang from his bed and ran, nightshirt billowing out behind him. Liedswelt scooped the still-unconscious Crysantema into his arms and followed, half blind without his spectacles and only certain of which way was out based on the daylight streaming in with ironic cheer through a newly-opened gap in the wall.

-----

Rakarde had made quite an investment in the greystone house by the River Moss. As a junior officer in the Northern War, he had earned quite a commission from the government, and with peace achieved, the fox had decided to put that commission into an idyllic home for himself, his wife, and their adolescent son. It was not a big house, but it was spacious enough. The exterior stones had been harvested from the same River Moss that now ran some fifty yards beyond the house and the interior was artistically laid out with natural and carved woods of all available colors. It was the perfect blend of outdoors and indoors, and aside from his family themselves, Rakarde regarded it as his finest investment.

The tall stone chimney was the first victim, scattering into its component parts and raining stones all over the grounds almost the instant the churning and shaking began. One could say that practicality had been laid by the wayside for the sake of artistry here, but the sudden awakening of the earth into a mad and senseless fit is not the kind of occasion that qualifies under normal preventative practicality.

Rakarde's sabre and uniform were flung off the wall against a heavily solid shelf of books. The hardwood floor beneath the shelf creaked and groaned as if it were being strangled, while the shaking that crept up through the walls and support beams served to more rapidly warp the floor planks. Crouching down low for balance, Rakarde and his mate Kinth scooted from the room, clasping each other's forepaws tightly as they ran down the twisting and buckling staircase.

Still moving as one creature, Rakarde and Kinth aimed toward their son Merritt's room on the first floor of the house, but the ground had other ideas, and the volume of the terrain's snarling was compounded by the percussive horror of stone after stone piling in on each other. With no time for tears, the two foxes dove out the front door as the rest of the house compacted itself.

When the little avalanche ceased and the roar of the ground beneath them seemed quiet in comparison, Rakarde and Kinth looked up from their prostrate position on the flexing forest floor. Merritt stood before them, unharmed, but the young fox was only a speck against the active background. The River Moss tossed violently between its banks and the air above them, thrashing as if the river itself were the fish that had been removed from its waters. The river foamed and roiled draconically in the early morning light, fascinating and terrible together.

Merritt continued to stand and watch, his own posture defiant and barely wavering at the spectacle. Or at least until the river took a capricious turn to the side, splashing down out of its banks and sending water rushing toward the young fox before leaping into the air again. Just as instantly as this great tumultuous motion began, Merritt was lying down and shaking, pressed tight between his panic-stricken but still-comforting parents.

-----

The Redwall Infirmary was in shambles. Glass bottles and tubes spilled out of unsecured wooden cabinets and shattered, the shards dancing with the waves of the floor, their chemical and herbal contents mingling in a noxious mess that served only to add to the fear of the unknown that hung heavily in the room. Empty cots were overturned as easily as if they were toys in a dollhouse, and occupied cots, no matter how sick the patients had felt previously, quickly became empty as the sick found the strength to try and outrun the un-outrunnable.

The head of he Infirmary, a mouse called Charity, ordered that her staff should find the balance to escort as many patients out as they could handle, but this gallant resolve broke down spectacularly as the Abbey walls took to crumbling, and the collapse of the bells clanged the death toll for any form of order and efficiency.

And in all of this, Jacinth remained in her cot, even expression and relaxed posture entirely at odds with the teetering of the entire building and the land on which it was built. Aetantim the ferretmaid, pushing forward on her knees, approached the singer's bedside and tugged anxiously at one of the loose paws, a wordless insistence to come along.

Jacinth placed her other paw on Aetantim's, everything about her posture, from the softness of those paws to the serene and placid smile on her face. The mousemaid moved in tandem with everything else in the room, for certain, but the extra motion on her part was minimal. This calm was unnerving to Aetantim, as if she needed further jolts against her nerves. Jacinth was just too calm, too steady, too deliberate in her inaction to be blissfully unaware. Aetantim could read a sense of inevitability all over Jacinth's face.

Everything continued to lurch and groan, and Jacinth, her expression unchanged, suddenly shoved Aetantim backwards toward the stairs, a strong push for such a small mouse. The ferret gasped and streaked down the stairs, her claws leaving tracks in the wooden banister that kept her descent from being a freefall. She continued stumbling forward through the widened space that had once been the great doors. Behind her, the Abbey succumbed to another push from below and the whole roof caved in with momentous grinding and tearing, filling in the Great Hall and taking most of the upper floors with it.

-----

And the earth kept roiling, rumbling, and shifting, waving in regular pulses, maybe even dancing as accompanied by its own terrible music. Such instantaneous spontaneities are transfixing, ending proper perception of time even with all their activity. Mere seconds inflate to hours by status of importance in memory, and some seconds are as clear as if a steady wind keeps them free of dust, while others are as jumbled as the piles of wreckage that accumulated throughout Mossflower.

And the walls kept falling, creatures kept running, and the earth kept moving.


	4. Chapter 4

The night cloaked Salamandastron like a deep blue blanket of the softest possible fibers, wrapping around every crag and edge of the old mountain and fairly well concealing the dark rocks from being visible as part of the nocturnal landscape. Its presence was only discernable at all if one knew where to look for a darkness without stars. Standing too close to the looming fortress served to block out its visible existence yet again, the solid rock face giving the impression of a heavy overcast night.

To the contrary, the soft rolling sand dunes that lay before Salamandastron itself were well visible in the starlight from above and reflected off the ocean. What was a soft dusty tan in the daylight became a peculiarly warm blue gray under the cover of night, almost luminescent as a strand between woods and water.

Two hares leaned against one of the dunes, the tan of their fur and the matching drab of their uniforms making them as hard to distinguish from the dunes as Salamandastron was against the sky. They had been there for quite some time and had given up all pretense of erect military posture as the wee hours of morning marched with more discipline toward the dawn.

At around three in the morning, the bigger of the two hares finally uttered the underlying thought that they had been skirting around in their discourse and complains the entire night. "Blast it all, Hayward, why'd old Winfield choose to leave us, his most loyal and true of officers, behind while he tottered off to Redwall for that bally party, wot?"

The smaller hare, who had been occupying himself by drawing lines in the sand with his big toe, looked up and shook his head. "Beats it all if I knew, Walden. They've got the ships out there to watch the coast and every other creature 'cept for us is off at that same bally old party. There'd be nobeast left to attack us, but if one wanted to try, who's to say even the most gallant of hares, such as the present company, should hold up?"

Walden snorted and waggled a droopy ear at Hayward. "I beg to differ, with all due respect, old chap. Do you not recall my gallantry in the Northern War and my subsequent ruthless completion of the drills at camp? I was a machine of war, and of the utmost elegance!"

Hayward smirked, his own eartips raising slightly along with his brow. "If my own eyes were not deceptive in the heat of battle, you were flailing about like a child's spinning top, catching foes on that sabre of yours by sheer luck and just as lucky that you'd run out of bullets and couldn't be misaiming that pistol at your own comrades, eh wot."

A low sound started in the back of Walden's throat and spurted out into a dry laugh. They'd had this conversation many times before. Hayward persisted to smirk and resumed work on his toe-in-the-sand artistic magnum opus.

An indeterminate amount of time went by, filled with much shuffling and twitching and the occasional outbreak of humming or whistling followed by an eventual thwack. Suddenly and silently, Salamandastron was illuminated softly from behind, dark and angular against a sheer shimmering white-blue pulse. It hung there for several seconds before dissipating upwards and leaving the sky as dark as it was before.

Hayward nudged Walden. "I say, it's doing it again."

Walden barely looked back. "Should be bally well getting used to it now, shouldn't we, wot? If those aliens were going to spring on us, they'd've already done it before giving themselves away right out with the first time they flashed at us."

"Aliens?" Hayward sputtered, his voice particularly loud against the quiet predawn. "I do say, that is a choice fabrication if I've ever heard one! That hell-or-high-water fur-and-fang steel-and-shot battleplan of yours has right well addled your brains!"

"I'm full-on serious!" Walden asserted. "Can you see any other reason? Got some other idea that makes any more sense? Come on, old chap, outdo me! I dare you!"

Hayward cast a long glance toward the looming dark bulk of Salamandastron before responding, a certain rigidity in his ears, "What if it's going to erupt again?"

"What?" Walden sputtered right back, flecks of moisture spraying from his mouth into the air in an attempt to one-up Hayward's reaction. He jabbed the smaller hare lightly in the ribs. "Erupt?"

"That's right," confirmed Hayward, the sound playful banter ebbing away from his tone. "It's a volcano, or it was, but it's not done anything so far as anyone remembers. Who's to say? Who bally well knows for sure?" He crossed his arms over his chest and dragged his toe straight through the picture he'd doodled earlier.

Walden tsked, flexing his knees until he was at eye level with Hayward. "You're serious, aren't you, wot? Come on, if there were still lava in it that could possibly come shooting out, d'you really think our forefathers really could have been living in there along with it for centuries and then some?"

Hayward merely shrugged and the conversation petered out, leaving the two hares to watch in exhausted silence as morning drew nearer and nearer and daylight came closer to relieving them from their posts.

Hayward's hypothesis had been far more correct in principle than Walden's was, though neither hare had any way of knowing this. Neither Walden nor anybeast he had ever met had ever had a run-in with extraterrestrial, but Hayward had merely misidentified the feature on which strain had been building toward a breaking point over the centuries.

The terrible growling started to emanate from the ground under the hares' footpaws at the instant the last brushstrokes of sunrise faded to cheerful blue. Yet neither Walden nor Hayward were able to notice that particular alignment, as at the same instant a huge force of damp sand stuck them from behind as forcefully as if it were a wave of water and dragged them downwards. But sand is far harder to work against than water is, and the attempted freestyle strokes of the two hares would have left them in the middle of the dune had the dune not persisted to act like water and suddenly leave them, sandy and shocked, in the trough of the wave. Their sputtering was now for the sake of air rather than for the sake of buffoonery, and as they looked up to try and put a name to what had just happened and what was still happening, they could see a whole succession of ground waves roiling inevitably toward them from inland.

Part of the military training at Salamandastron is preparation for chaos at sea, so the hares knew to place themselves parallel to the crests and troughs in water, allowing the water to bob under them and opening the way for a horizontal swim to safety. They hazarded a guess that the same principle would be their only chance with these madly vibrating waves of sand. In the constant rising of falling of parts of the ground against others, Walden and Hayward were fortuitously able to pull themselves onto a solid chunk of volcanic rock that, while it was still shaking and shifting, at least had no potential to engulf them alive.

Stranded as if on a raft in the middle of a hurricane, the hares could only cling to each other in dire need of consolation and stare out at the hostile environment. Walden, facing inland, had an unobstructed view of the seemingly endless stream of waves coursing through what had always previously been comfortingly and undeniably solid ground. Hayward, facing out to sea, saw those same waves transfer with much foam and froth from land to water, assertively pushing the churning waters away from the shore rather than allowing them to passively lap up on it.

Smaller chunks of rock detached from and ricocheted off the face of the great fire mountain, pelting the shifting sand and roiling water. The natural structure of the mountain, however, made it more immune to the troubles caused by the sister of the forces that had brought it into being, and while the interior rooms quickly became a series of jumbled messes, the great fortress itself staid off the thundering cataclysm.

Walden and Hayward had no idea how long they clung to each other and to dear life on that rock, but the moment the shaking shuddered itself out and the growling faded until the hiss of the agitated water could again be heard against the beach – and only then, the moment they could be steady on their own legs, the hares broke into a full run on the path toward Redwall. The badger Winfield was there, and the nature of the savagery that had just enveloped the two sentinel hares and their fortress needed to be disclosed to him post-haste.


	5. Chapter 5

The town of Darkhill lay in the northernmost reaches of Mossflower Country, tucked neatly between the foothills that led to the more looming mountains that were the gateway to the Northlands proper. The mountains provided a clean and markable boundary between the two regions, actually far neater than the historical boundary had ever been. Indeed, Darkhill had once been part of the so-called wild vermin territory of the extreme north, though the weather-worn permanence of its wooden and brick houses and the sensible layout of its streets in themselves told that any ties to horde behavior were long in the past here.

The Northern War had not been good to Darkhill by sheer location alone. The instigating horde had come from even further northeast, aimed at Redwall simply because nobeast had done so for a while, at least as far as the citizens of Darkhill could see it. It just so happened that this group encountered a party of Mossflowerites laying railway track before coming even close to the Abbey, thus setting the front lines of the battle in Darkhill's collective back yard. Relatively few residents fought in the actual war, though the town's trained defenses stayed on guard for the duration. Most of the town's casualties came from mere chance and circumstance – a badly-aimed mortar shell here, some skirmishers and sharpshooters there. The Guard had kept out of this as much as possible, knowing that more aggressive defense could only end in specifically-aimed offense.

While Mossflower Country was in a constant state of expansion, its government never used force to initiate the acquiring of land, particularly when true offers of protection seemed to suffice. When the other side initiated, though, all bets were off. The trained and efficient army from Salamandastron had handily shoved the horde backwards from whence it came. The mountains were the last defensible position for the sorely-damaged horde, and with that boundary set, the Mossflowerites were quick to snap up the band of land that they had just cleared out for their own.

In their victory, the Mossflowerites had diplomatically approached Darkhill on the matter. The mayor, a ferret called Garlock, had initially protested, stating that all the town wished for was to be left alone. When the keeper of the field hospital released two wounded-but-healed Darkhill civilians from her care, however, they spoke only the highest praise for the care they had received and described how the patients had been Redwaller, hordebest, and bystander alike. Such a service being paid without being requested was, in Garlock's mind, even better than being entirely left alone, and thus the union was forged.

Some of Darkhill's predominantly-musteline population had complained at first, and for the first couple of years, Garlock could never be certain of what degree of hate mail would be stuffed in his box on any given morning. As more and more time passed without significant event other than the initial union, the attitudes and objections of the populace subsided into the previous pattern of leaving well enough alone. After all, if the leaders in Redwall were adhering to that themselves, why make a fuss that would only draw more attention?

And, truth be told, Garlock did not at all mind relinquishing some governmental issues associated with running an independent township to a larger body. The ferret kept his status and worth within Darkhill, but with a fraction of the work. He didn't have to handle the taxes anymore, for one thing. Keeping up health care and productive large-scale agriculture also had fallen into the able paws at Redwall, and those paws had opened up superiorly accessible transportation between these relevant points of importance, systems that Garlock could have never campaigned to fund when Darkhill was his sole responsibility. He still had to lead the local politics and manage any correction of contained criminal affairs, but such intrigue was rare there, and Garlock had to admit that he enjoyed the occasional stir to spice up the usual "leave alone and be left alone in return."

As official citizens of Mossflower Country, the residents of Darkhill were also fully entitled to participate in such affairs as Nameday. Each year, the embossed and sealed personal invitation from the Abbot of Redwall himself found its way into Garlock's quarters, and after the first one, the ferret opened each, examined the penmanship and paper quality, and then threw it out. The one time Garlock had attended, right after the Northern War, was just as much political as it was curiosity, but it did not go so well. Despite the integration of species so commonplace further south, Garlock felt as if he were profoundly outside of that sphere at every turn he took, and creatures of all sorts started to express interest in his Darkhill as a place to live. Governmental union was one thing, but large groups of unfamiliar creatures moving in would no longer constitute paws-off or leaving alone, so after that first year, Garlock simply chose to excuse himself before he even arrived.

The other residents of Darkhill had certainly not been forbidden from celebrating, though the vast majority of them observed the occasion with a level of disinterest and apathy that would have made their mayor proud. Some, however, took it for a more legitimate excuse than usual to break out the wine, ale, and grog and carouse in the streets. On other occasions, such behavior would be regarded as a stir about town, but for this case, Garlock was even more content than usual to block out even the goings on of his own community and sit in his quarters behind a closed door.

But even comfortably inertia-free mayors can get stir crazy, and in his night of self-containment, Garlock took to pacing and could not bring himself to sleep for more than an hour or so at a time when his mate Falla called him to bed. He shifted constantly and dreamed only that he was shifting about even more, which might as well have not been dreaming at all. When the first hints of color snuck up behind the drawn curtains of the bedroom, Falla, too tired herself to exhibit any proper impatience, encouraged her restless husband to walk it off outside now that the revelers had gone.

The soil around Darkhill was still laced with frost and hardness at this time of year, only compounded by the same sort of rock that comprised the not-so-distant mountains being covered by minimal amounts of the frozen less-compact dirt. This cold solidness pulled in moisture from the more active springtime to the south, blanketing the predawn with a fuzzy layer of mist which was, on this particular morning, also laced by a faint odor of sulfur.

Garlock wandered through this tangible fog as aimlessly as he had wandered the more fleeting fogs of sleep, taking the occasional misstep, brain not recognizing that his nose was picking up something strange, ears not rendering the surrounding world with any degree of sharpness. Thus, for the first ponderous instant, the primal rumbling and the expectation of a step to land on ground that turned out to be absent seemed to be only a further sign of overwhelming exhaustion.

Garlock tripped and rolled forward, a neat somersault propelled by the ground over which it occurred rather than by the beast completing the stunt, and with the pounding against his entire body rather than just behind his eyes and eardrums, the ferret was awakened in the most rude of all manners. He planted all four of his paws on the ground in a futile quest for steadiness, only to push himself off to the side as a furrow in the ground, fragments of soil pushing upwards in a V several feet high, extended past where he had been standing the moment before the mayhem started.

With the brittle frozen rockiness of the Darkhill ground, the astonishing up-and-down swing did not tangibly manifest as it looked here – this was no frantic roiling of a terranean ocean, but rather the jarring vibration of someone grabbing a cabinet of china and shaking it with every ounce of his strength. Sense of balance entirely robbed of him, Garlock was forced himself to drag himself along by the ground itself, or by trees or curbs or whatever else his splintering claws could catch upon, coming closer and closer to being pinned by the serpentine tracks of the earth as he grasped toward his home.

But china and brittle ground, when stressed enough, also fissure and break. As the shaking persisted, some of the darting furrows pulled open along their middle line, and entirely new cracks burst open and pinched shut and burst open again to either side, giving fleeting opportunities to stare into the dark inner workings of a planet gone mad. Garlock recoiled from such an opportunity to observe and instead could only see the horror as a rat who had run out into the street in a panic failed to watch his steps and fell into the same gaping crack, his sudden squeak of dismay serving as the last evidence that he had ever been there at all.

Biting his lower lip until blood came out, Garlock managed to pull himself to a tree and climb up just far enough that he was no longer in contact with the ground. The shaking was more precarious, but there were no cracks in the bark. The ferret shut his eyes and tried to count his breaths to remind himself that he was still alive, but he had lost count by the time the shaking subsided.

The lingering strands of fog did not stop the damage from being clear as Garlock returned to his home. The streets were riddled with cracks, lanterns and signposts had been torn down or even thrown, and many a pile of bricks or wooden planks lay where a home had once stood. Yet the fog was not all-revealing. At a distance, Garlock's home appeared to have been spared the brunt, but as the ferret came up to his door, he noticed that the right window had been shattered and an inch-wide split running from the ground straight through the room traversed the frame. Garlock's heart started palpitating violently, no matter how secure his home had seemed to him just moments before.

"Falla?" Garlock called, his voice higher and less authoritative than it had ever been before. He peered into each room of the one-story wood-and-brick building, each time sounding only more frantic. "Falla? Falla!"

The bedroom lay at the back right end of the house, and its contents cut Garlock's words off in a strangulated gasp. The crack ran back here as well. The bed leaned toward it, the open wardrobe was bisected by it, and, most troublingly, a hem of green fabric stuck out of the crack closest to the bed. The source of his own shaking now, Garlock approached and confirmed his fears upon noticing a tailtip hanging out from this hem and nothing more besides ground beyond it.

For a moment, Garlock rocked back and forth on his feet. Then, with an energy reserve that surprised even him, he dashed from the house and onto the splintered path toward Redwall. Leaving well enough alone was all well and good when nothing was happening, but if the very country itself – not its politics – could raise up as it just had, Garlock now fully intended to partake of of any benefits that his union agreement could afford him.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Had the clocks been functioning and had somebeast been calm enough to think to look at them, the observation could have been made that the shaking had lasted precisely one minute and seventeen seconds. However, none of the clocks survived to tell the tale; even those which had not been knocked over or crushed by other wreckage had their gears wrenched out of working order with the first great jolt. The clocks that had remained solid in it all could at least testify that the earthquake had set across the breadth of Mossflower at eighteen minutes before seven o'clock in the morning.

The newly-still spring air shimmered red-gold around the lightly-swaying trees surrounding Redwall Abbey. The effect was produced by the climbing morning sunlight catching on the yellow road dust and the small particles of pulverized red sandstone that had been cast into the air by the earth's convulsions. It was a truly otherworldly light, the strange castoff of a devilish magical spell designed to distract from the trickery that had been wrought. Though mere trickery would have been an enviable alternative to the reality that came further and further into focus as the curtain of dust was carried upward and outward by the calm spring breeze. At first, faint edges were drawn together out of pinpoints in the crowded air, next connected into polygons, and then extended back into three-dimensional spaces.

But those three-dimensional spaces were entirely alien to the battered creatures who at last felt safe to raise their heads and see what nature had brought upon them. Their eyes all drew to one point, a jagged spire of two former walls meeting at a right angle, extending upwards to a severed point, then sloping down, brick edge by broken brick edge, to meet with a jumble of less-fortunate rubble. Outlines of arched windows accented this surviving bastion, though they were the only familiar features of the vaguely-square architectural shell, aside from the sickeningly unmistakable sandy red hue. The rest of the Abbey had mostly been pulled into the central space between the former walls, though some fragments had been cast dozens of meters from their source, some had sagged deeper into the ground, and some had been pulverized into the fine dust that pervaded the atmosphere as thoroughly as fear and the premonition of yet-indescribable loss did.

Those who had made it out of the Abbey invariably trained their eyes upon its remains. Those who had, for whatever reason, remained within its confines no longer had the capacity to do more than lie there, glazed and clouded eyes blind to the living world. For all its apparent life, the earth had no discrimination between what was richly filled with historical and contemporary life and what was just brick and mortar, or between what was another splittable rock versus what was a creature with dreams and goals.

The survivors surrounded the remains of Redwall in little clumps, groups that had fled together, or just beasts in desperate need to be closer to another life with so many death throes happening around them. The infirmary workers Charity and Aetantim were together with some of their patients. Ruta, the visiting badger general Winfield, and several Salamandastron hares crouched not far away, the Abbot of Redwall conspicuously absent from their circle. Similar clusters became apparent to each other by the slow propagation of dazed and frantic whispering. The sound carried through the restored stillness quite well, though it seemed to go unspoken that a mutual fear of setting the earth against them one more barred them from producing too loud of a sound wave.

One upright figure passed among the clumps of refugees, his tall but wide silhouette obscured of some detail by the diffuse dust in the air, but still the first figure clearly back on his footpaws. Yet there was no sense or defiance or normalcy whatsoever about Enruso. There seemed to be no reason why the stoat tenor was not crashing into things as he wandered, clad only in his nightshirt, about the devastated landscape. His face stretched into a fixed look of bewilderment, features standing out as if they'd been enhanced by stage makeup, Enruso's muttering was to himself, or perhaps to the whole world: "What a place. What a place this is…"

Andreas was also without a group with which to speculate, but unlike with many of the other beasts in the vicinity, a strange sort of resolve was etched under the layer of horrified disbelief that was more readily identifiable on the marten's face. Too sore to push himself up on his footpaws, Andreas remained more secure on all fours as he aimed for the stricken gatehouse archive that he had abandoned to its fate.

Though the books were dirty and lay several shelves' worth thick on the ground, the sliding rocking collapse of the room had laid them down (with the exception of the top few, which had been relocated to unrecoverable places) in roughly the chronological order in which they had been shelved. Andreas managed a weak smile at this discovery before plunging into the pile. At first, the marten made an effort to lay each salvaged volume in a neat pile, but he became more and more haphazard with the placement as he continued to not find what he needed. It was not until he had dug practically to the bottom layer that he located what he had almost worked himself into a frenzy over – two carefully-rebound older volumes, the current recordbook, and the small black personal notebook.

Clutching the precious volumes to his chest with one arm, Andreas attempted to climb out three-pawed from the little cavern of books into which he'd dug himself. As he neared the top, though, the books against which he was supported jerked out from under him. The marten fell backwards and quickly scrambled against what appeared to be a more stable pile, curling himself around the liberated volumes as the slide proved itself to be more sinister in cause than just a reaction to the marten's bodyweight.

The second round of deep growling was just as unexpected as the first, on the principle of lightning strikes and single locations. But with earthquakes, striking a different place often comprises moving the first place closer to that different place. It was a fortunate thing that the escapees from Redwall were still hunched close to the ground and away from structures, no matter how skeletal, as the terrible waves overtook the countryside for a second time.

-----

Moles are designed to spend time in the subterranean world, free of light and short on air. Yet a deliberately-dug tunnel is an entirely different case than being unwillingly enclosed in a shifting mire. The minute and a quarter of the mainshock was just below the threshold of what Elsinore could bear, an the seconds required to dig out of the unfamiliar imprisonment in familiar material used up the last burst of oxygen. Elsinore gasped raggedly to reinflate her lungs, then looked around in a survey of the scene.

Skoilkull had also extracted himself from the ground and was wordlessly scratching into the dirt in search of the rest of his crew. The temblor had effectively undone all the work that the railroad crew had put in, leaving a filled-in and rippled surface on the former trench. Elsinore, even considering her more formal study in the nature of soil and rocks, hadn't the faintest inkling of where to start searching out engulfed teammates, but she followed Skoilkull's lead and equally wordlessly began redisturbing the recently-disturbed dirt.

Several snouts and sets of digging claws poked through the ground on their own last dregs of momentum and were promptly assisted by Skoilkull, Elsinore, and any other crew members feeling able enough for the work. But as two minutes wore to five and to eight, the probability of finding more survivors decreased radically.

Digging claws still sensitive, the moles anticipated the second shock enough to clear the filled-in track for ground with grass. Again, the earth thrashed beneath them and again, the roaring filled their ears, though this time they were privy to the visual of the ground waves. Thirty seconds was enough of that for Elsinore, and when it faded as the mainshock had, her seasick greenness was enhanced by the knowledge that five surviving moles of nine was the definitive total. This consensus also required no words, and the defeated moles turned to report their misfortune to Redwall.

-----

Merritt's immediate comment upon the conclusion of the mainshock was that he could just as well have made it through on his own. The young fox's tone, however, was quite indicative of the opposite, even as he unwrapped his arms from around his parents. In some circumstances, Rakarde and Kinth could have found this mixed message irritating, or perhaps even humorous, but in the present case, they were simply grateful that their son was able to blow them off at all.

In the eight and a half minutes between foreshock and aftershock, the two adults approached the devastated house paw-in-paw, struggling with thoughts of avoidance versus considerations of inevitability as they surveyed the quake's handiwork. Merritt loped as casually as he could pretend to be toward the River Moss. An empty riverbed lay between the young fox and the river itself, and based on the direction in which the fallen leaves were traveling in the displaced stream, it was easy to make the still-startling conclusion that the water was flowing in the opposite direction from normal. Merritt was quite taken with this phenomenon until the water lurched violently back into its banks and resumed its prior manic dance, the same waves propelling Merritt to seek refuge in his parents once again.

The already structurally decimated stone house was even further reduced to a shapeless mound of river rocks within those thirty seconds. With no hope of recovering anything within, neither material items nor a normal life, all three foxes were struck even more dumbly than after the first shock. It was Merritt who took the first steps out on the path toward Redwall. Unwilling to continue exhibiting weakness as he felt he had been doing, the young fox took it upon himself to be forthgoing where his pale and grieving parents could not. Rakarde and Kinth did not pick up that particular fragment of subtext, but they understood the directional message and followed.

The trio of foxes, dazed though they were, took reasonable speed down the path. While it had never been the smoothest of roads, its surface had become further rippled, warped, compressed and folded in the course of so little time. But they tripped and stumbled along even over its new state without a true break of pace until fifteen minutes later, when a third convulsive outburst emanated from the ground below.

-----

In under half an hour, the citizens of Mossflower centered around the empty husk of Redwall Abbey had gone from experiencing the same type of unexpected three times to anticipating the next occurrence in every move. A dislodged tree branch would succumb to gravity and large clusters of creatures would crouch over with their forepaws protecting their necks. A precariously deposited stone would topple to where entropy preferred it to go and Enruso would lapse into the death scene of one of Lascala's earlier works. Now that the ground had so forcefully asserted itself three times, the impression of an inescapable circle of fate was shared in groups, too scared to move, but speaking louder as they knew volume had no bearing on seismicity.

Andreas found it more difficult to extract himself from a pile of heavy books than it was to pull other books out of such a pile. The marten had acquired a sizeable collection of bruises and papercuts, though these were vastly preferable over injuries that would have undoubtedly been inflicted by a chunk of rock whose fall was broken by a set of 200-year-old record volumes that Andreas had never previously regarded as being terribly useful. Still tenaciously clutching the four volumes against his chest, though they felt heavier and heavier with each new impediment, the Recorder of Mossflower Country teetered away from the crumbling remains of Redwall Abbey.

He knew he'd reached a suitable spot for his work when the third aftershock merely (to think that it could ever be considered as "mere"!) growled and moved the ground, still a visible attack but with shallower waves, without piling anything on top of him or slamming him from below. Easing himself into a seated position once the waves had passed, Andreas tiredly but diligently cracked open the oldest of the four volumes, tired eyes searching the long ago for instances more closely related to the present than the date on the volume would initially suggest.

But those by Redwall were solely thinking of the immediate future by this point, the immediate past still too fresh to comprehend but still illuminated intensely with indications that it was not yet over in terms of consequences. Their sense of present was suspended between the terrors of past and future, just as unsafe as a predicament as the one with the earth itself, And yet when the now-familiar subterranean snarling and convulsing picked up for the fourth time, they felt fully justified in their strange temporal suspension, as they had at least seen this fragment of future in advance.

-----

Hayward and Walden ran. Even when the railroads were not incapacitated, the footpath and carriage road between Salamandastron and Redwall was still a wide and well-traveled one. The distance was not small, but it was not by any stretch outside of the realm of the hares' training. Of course, this was no normal run. There are some things to which literal training to "take things in stride" does not apply, but when those things happen in sequences, they can still be assimilated into some bizarre semblance of routine. The first aftershock was just as terrifying as the initial earthquake for certain, but the hares remembered what worked the first time, and as they moved southeast and away from sand as the aftershocks decreased in magnitude, the threat of engulfment became less of a specter over the run and those strides were easier to take.

In fact, the largest obstacle on their run thus far had been spatially fixed at the time of the encounter. On all previous more leisurely jaunts along this road, it had gone directly from Salamandastron to Redwall, but this time the hares came upon an abrupt dead end, freshly broken dirt meeting a row of solid old trees. Walden, never one for subtlety, persisted in running through the unbroken forest in what he assured Hayward was the correct direction. But Hayward did not follow so simply, and Walden returned to the edge of the path, pushing his companion to follow him. Instead, mystified, Hayward pointed off to the right. Their interrupted path did indeed continue on toward Redwall, only it had been diverted linearly by nearly twenty feet. The riddle at once solved and made more perplexing, Walden and Hayward cut over to the extension of the path, continuing toward Redwall come hell or high land.

-----

Garlock ran. There was little precision in the ferret's gait as he zigzagged over the broken path as if those terrible furrows had become sentient and were chasing him, but he ran nevertheless, just as much trying to distance himself from the devastation in Darkhill as he was running to reach Redwall. He wasn't going to leave that image alone, not hardly, but with the ground persisting to be less than solid and stable at unpredictable intervals, thinking of the scene at all was to think of himself within it.

At each aftershock, Garlock flung himself onto the nearest treetrunk and screwed his eyes shut, preferring the stronger shaking to the possibility of seeing ground cracks. But roughly an hour and a quarter after his departure, when a fifth shock still managed to catch Garlock off his guard, he attached himself to a tree that had been substantially weakened by the previous four. With his eyes shut as ever, the ferret did not even realize he was falling until the trunk met the ground. It fell away from the path, and the angle at which it fell came mere inches from pinning Garlock's left arm and leg between it and the forest floor. Blood dribbling from a self-inflicted hole in his lower lip, the ferret skittered like a child fleeing closet monsters back to the path, pattern more erratic but speed more intent than before.

-----

Just like creatures throughout the ravaged and shattered woods of Mossflower needed to readjust themselves and their outlooks following the temblor, so did the earth itself. It had been content in its dormancy, moving only when centuries' worth of stress finally crossed some unknowable threshold, and now that sudden relocation required some acclimation. The ground sought to settle into a comfortable new spot, trying one alignment, finding it unsatisfactory, shifting again, and so forth, seeking the most natural position in which to rest.

The adjustments became smaller and smaller, perhaps finickier and finickier. The visible ground waves were the first factor to disappear in the uncountable string of aftershocks, followed by the decrescendo and morendo of the low growlings, until the shakings themselves became short jokes, then momentary wobbles, then little flickers that were only apparent to one watching for signs of motion in leaves or scattered pebbles.

For a full day and a half after the initial earthquake, with few exceptions the surviving citizens of Mossflower County could only sit and wait for the next punishing blow, and even when the aftershocks diminished to a level that allowed betting on when the next one would occur or weakly attempting humor in the predicament, the lingering worry of another large shock was enough to induce motionlessness to the point of even forgetting to eat. One could almost see it as overcompensation – a stillness of life to contrast the great upheaval of the crystalline, a lack of consumption of the land's fruits as the land had consumed so many products of civilization.


	7. Chapter 7

As midday wore on toward late afternoon on the day after the earthquake and creatures began to stir in weary imitation of normal motion, a peculiar sort of conflict overtook the survivors. Any conflict seems distorted and its cause becomes questionable when both ends of it consist of individuals who are barely conscious, but the urgent nature of the concepts at play here only increased the air of bizarreness. The point of concern was whether it was more important to expend dwindling energy on scouring the rubble for potential survivors or on trying to reach food, whether in the woods or by uncovering the pantry and cellars of what used to be Redwall. Choosing between sustaining one's own life and potentially saving others' is usually the stuff of hypothetical situations, and while some creatures took more definitive sides, many engaged in this slow-motion version of conflict even within themselves.

Skoilkull, Elsinore, and the other three surviving moles from the railroad crew came upon the scene in the mid-afternoon, their dark eyes less lustrous than usual to match their dust-laden fur. Usually a solid beast of reason, Skoilkull fell to his knees at the sight of the toppled landmark, weeping profusely in his basso profundo. Elsinore stared, an odd edge of being impressed by the toll nature had taken even within her horror. The female mole trundled stiffly toward the circle of beasts containing Ruta. A larger circle had formed around the badger's group already, a rough effort to seek guidance for their dilemma even though the badger was in no state to be particularly authoritative. Nevertheless, Elsinore pushed through the outer circle and stopped before the badger, knitting her digging claws together and breathing deeply.

"Marm. Oi was going to report what terrors had fallen boi the railroad crew, but oi think you have an oidea. Us'uns are foive. We wurr noin. They're still in the graound and b'aint coming aout." Elsinore bowed her head.

Before Ruta could make any sort of definitive determination, what would have been shouted protests and comments in a more lively setting bubbled up as poorly-enunciated complaints. Some creatures insisted that the moles should not have left the dead in their already-filled-in graves and that there was enough edible material in the woods to sustain the effort to dig into the rubble of red sandstone and recover the dead and living alike. The opposite viewpoint presented itself with equal lack of discernible conviction, noting that if the ground could kill off moles, there would be no hope that a woodland creature without such a genetic predisposition to subterranean life could have survived the shaking and collapse and confinement after this long, and that sustaining the currently-countable lives was the proper thing to do.

Ruta lifted one paw, the effort to make such a shift of weight clear in the rest of her posture. She paused, as if the exertion required catching of breath, then offered a phrase that would have come across as weakly evasive in most other situations. "It is beyond my power or will to make a unilateral and official decision here. The decisions must be individual, and they will be the proper decisions if they are made with personal conviction toward the greater good."

Solemn nods and mutters of both agreement and dissent trickled through the masses, yet very few of the displaced Mossflowerites stirred beyond that, as if their decision-making skills had been shaken out of them along with the sense that waiting would make either goal a less-promising one.

In the midst of the impasse, three foxes came up the path leading from the River Moss. The youngest leaned against the one female, and all three appeared to be far more alarmed with the state of Redwall than they should have been considering what had befallen their own home. Tears, previously so stunned as to stay confined in their ducts, welled up in Kinth's eyes and her posture sagged, both in reaction to the scene and in response to Merritt's further slumping against her. Rakarde stayed by their side a moment longer before aiming toward Ruta's circle within a circle.

"What's going on?" he questioned, voice a balance between assertion and concern. "Why are you all just sitting? Is there something I do not know?"

Ruta regarded Rakarde wearily. "There is an issue between finding food and finding survivors. They are to decide, and thus they do nothing."

Rakarde pulled his head back slightly, eyes tightening into a confused squint. "So decide something anyway. My family ran here and we don't want to be undecided away. I don't think anybeast would. You can even do both – dig toward the cellars and pull out anybeast you encounter along the way."

Ruta emitted a low rumble of approval. "There's a reason you were so effective in that war," she told Rakarde, then addressed her citizens. "You heard him." The badger pulled herself upright and lumbered strenuously toward the toppled walls of the Abbey, with Rakarde not far behind her.

As the fox and the badger dislodged the first fallen stones, others started trickling to the site, casting away the damaged stones of their history well into the night. When Cavern Hole and the cellars were uncovered, crews of weaker or slightly-injured beasts that were still determined to assist moved in to clear out the still-ample stocks of food. But when the body of some departed acquaintance or friend was unearthed, all of the workers held off in solemn silence as the infirmary crew – or the funeral detail, for the time being – moved in to clear it out to an increasing row of beasts awaiting proper graves.

-----

The morning of the third day was heralded in by hares, in addition to by the unbroken and glorious weather pattern of the Mossflower spring. Hayward and Walden cleared the last leg of the path with surprising gusto, but as soon as they held in one place, it was clear that their muscles were spasming with exhaustion under their sand-streaked fur. They stood for several minutes awaiting the return of their breath and taking in the disturbing extent of the scene.

Some of the Redwallers had slept for part of the night and were just waking up from a slumber so deep and so necessary that the confusion to location and situation was amply clear in their eyes upon their awakening. Others clustered about the recovered stockpile of food, some sorting and rationing off portions, others eating, slowly and with greater appreciation than they had ever given food before. And some creatures had kept up the digging all through the night, dodging the occasional minor aftershock, recovering fewer and fewer bodies but continuing to pan through the shattered stones of Redwall, almost as if to extend last contact with it before the final parting.

Even in disaster or in the most streamlined of efficiency, hares will be hares. Led by their stomachs more than their brains initially, Walden and Hayward stumbled at the stockpile of comestibles, veritably inhaling as much as the workers would allow them. When that threshold was reached, Walden leaped, his already noticeably replenished, to the wallside, plunging into the effort without as much as a boastful word. Hayward, sighting the badger Winfield among the small subset of beasts who were not doing much of anything, approached his General with a far more measured step. The badger was discussing among his group how refuge could be offered at Salamandastron, and Hayward did not relish the duty of explaining why, quite simply, that was not going to work.

-----

Shortly before noon, the ferret Garlock completed his terror-stricken flight from Darkhill to Redwall. His body heaving from the intense journey and his once-expensive suit torn and stained in a dozen places, Garlock was beyond caring about image as he skidded the final stretch of road and very nearly tripped over himself as he pulled to a stop by the infirmary crew. Eyes shutting tight and teeth flashing at the glance down the row of sorry bodies, Garlock's plea to speak with somebeast who could help him sounded more like a gruff order than anything else.

Charity, occupied in her work, could not have responded in what could be deemed as a polite manner anyhow, and she directed Garlock toward Ruta with a limp and bloodied paw.

In his mind, Garlock's statement to Ruta was a powerful and empassioned stand for the welfare of his townsfolk. In actuality, many of the ferret's words were lost, reducing his point to, "My town, Darkhill – leveled. My wife, Falla – crushed. What will you do?"

The badger studied the ferret for a moment, less familiar with him by sight than with many of the others who had come to her with comparable pleas. "We will do all in our reach to help you, like with all of the other towns in our reach, though that reach is not so all-encompassing now. But can you afford us the same?"

Garlock's lips twitched back at this query, though he ultimately held out against the snarl, nodding in sullen agreement and trying to figure just what his own reach was.

-----

And through all of this, off at an unnoticeable distance, Andreas sat and read. The marten had stopped for the nights to sleep and had drifted from his spot to harvest edible plants from the woods, but these necessities were the only diversions to his diligent and admirably calm study.

He first read through the two old record volumes slowly and thoroughly, going over some pages twice and again, occasionally marking what he deemed to be particularly vital passages with plucked blades of grass or fallen leaves. When he felt he had achieved the full absorption of these source materials, the Recorder opened the small black notebook and began to synthesize with a stub of pencil that he kept sharp with his own claws. He filled page after page, points bulleted, entire phrases underlined, key elements referenced with page numbers in the historical volumes. It was the most extensive and important thing he had written in his entire lifetime, yet confined to a personal notebook for the sake of the hypothetical issues still involved.

Andreas had opened the current recordbook at first, intending to include a more basic summary of the past few days' turmoil for the official histories. But as he opened to the page on which he had been recording the now mild-seeming operatic mayhem when the earthquake struck, Andreas' eyes fell to the peculiar jagged squiggle his pen had left before being forced off the page. The long streak of ink came in the middle of an unfinished word and cut off at the edge of the page, with a full two thirds of a sheet of blank paper below it. This was the quake's own signature, Andreas realized, Nature's own stab at the duties of Recorder, and he felt that it spoke for the event better than any condensed verbal summary could.


	8. Chapter 8

By the next morning, even as the excavation continued, many of the faces in the growing line of the fallen had names associated with them, recorded on the backs of the Friar's uncovered case of recipe cards (he could not object to this manner of recycling, as he required a card of his own) and laid respectfully on top of the lifeless chest of each. In some cases, however, the lack of a need for such a card was more troubling if the name in question had not been uttered in its owner's voice at the first organized roll call on the third day after the quake. There was something both more final and less resolved in these cases, as the weariness of the workers coupled with the thicker piles of rubble moving inward from the Abbey's former walls implied that some bodies might have to remain in the tangled mess for an indeterminably longer period of time.

The Abbot was one such case. With his quarters high up, in order to allow a view of as much of Mossflower Country as the height of Redwall would have provided, it was doubtless that, now as much as ever, he lay somewhere at the very heart of Redwall. The mouse Jacinth was another. Charity could account for her having been in the infirmary, but Aetantim insisted that there had been strange things about in the mezzo's demeanor and that things with her should not be taken as givens. Crysantema, discontent in her torn and unglamorous nightgown, would have been pleased to leave the scene with no word on the mouse, but Enruso broke into fits of drama more frequently than residual aftershocks rolled through, and Maestro Liedswelt insisted upon closure to the matter, even if the body turned out to be too broken to return to its home for a proper burial.

And then there was Andreas. Nobeast had seen tail or whisker of the marten Recorder since the night of the opera, nor any other evidence that he remained alive. The initial neat piles of books he had made after the mainshock had been scattered to a maximum of entropy by the subsequent aftershocks, and in that state of disorder, nobeast was so thorough to note the absence of four volumes. Pawing through the mess of books was easier than pawing through broken stones, but when the marten's body was not found, it was assumed not that he'd escaped, but that he had been somewhere inside the Abbey.

But a Recorder was deemed necessary for such times as these, as Ruta, taking on the Abbot's responsibilities as well as her own, could not also take on that job. There was no time to do an elective search for a replacement, so when a mouse called Wesley offered his services there was no argument. Assisted by several larger creatures, the mouse returned to the jumbled library, heaving the books into further disorder as he searched for the current volume of records.

"You are only making the later job of reassembly more difficult," came a voice that inflected equal amounts of exhaustion, bemusement, and urgency. It was also an indubitably familiar voice, to which Wesley reacted with great relief.

Andreas tapped the top book of the four he held against his chest with one finger. "I have everything here that is important right now, but it needs to make its way out of the books and into common knowledge. Cleaning that can come later. Now, if your aim is to assist me, it would be best to help assemble attention."

Wesley eagerly rose to his footpaws and darted off at the Recorder's bidding, with the pair of squirrels and one hedgehog who had been helping him spreading out in other directions. Andreas' slow and purposeful walk down toward the remaining spire of wall and circle of elders, however, was in itself a powerful drawing force to the busy but weary and scattered Mossfloweites. The marten with the books seemed so definite, more so than any other thing in these past few days had been, that they laid aside their previous tasks to follow him.

At the return of the Recorder, Ruta's tired expression (its stripes perhaps grayer from stress) eased out a smile. "You are our only good news so far," the badger told Andreas. The marten nodded, his gaze drifting beyond Ruta and skimming along the row of deadbeasts that extended beyond the pile of debris that had once been Redwall's back wall. The marten choked a bit at the sight, but fought back a more severe manifestation of grief as the circle of creatures around where he and Ruta stood became thicker with attentive souls.

Being a scholar and a writer, Andreas was not accustomed to making oral presentations, particularly not before an audience of this size. Yet sheer importance outweighed stage fright in his mind, and he licked his dry lips, forced the thoughts of the row of dead bodies away, and began to speak, his baritone voice unpracticed but by no means uncertain.

"I believe I can speak fairly for everyone when I say that the events of the past few days have been very surprising. One simply does not go around expecting an earthquake at every turn, or if one does, then we call him paranoid. No, we were all surprised, and we all have every right in the world to have been.

"However, there is historical precedent for such events as these, even if it is not terribly recent history or a precedent that lingers in the backs of creatures' minds. But that is the purpose of having an Archivist who reads the material – I recalled reading something about tremors once, and the relevance of that reading has shot straight up to the point where it needs to be common knowledge."

Andreas placed one paw on the first of the books, now laid out in a row. "First, we have the events of the Summer of the Golden Plain. These records are, to me, a fascinating read, though they have much to do with the horrors of war and slavery. But the climactic battle of the campaign came after a journey to the southeastern cliffs and ridges and took place in the crevasse down there. Though the slavers were defeated by living creatures, the battle culminated with "dancing cliffs," to quote the Recorder Churchmouse; that could only be a reference to an earthquake. There is also description of the toll this war took on the remnants of Loamhedge Abbey, and how those remains seemed to have suffered the brunt of other quakes before the Redwallers' arrival. Lastly, there is in the appendices of thoughts from the participants in the events, an account that the Stump family had experienced many an earthquake up by the cliffs and had chosen to relocate for that very reason. This shows in particular the frequency of such occurrences."

Andreas shut the first volume and opened a second to a fold-out group of pages that contained and expansive, detailed, and ornate map of the entire region. "Second, we have the cartographic account of the traveling journeyman Lontano. This map still remains one of the most thorough of the area and it contains detail to the most minute focus observable at the time on the features of the land itself, to the point of this taking precedence over creating yet another political map. Lontano's chart contains several curious ridges and valleys, some of them very linear. Straight lines in nature are suspect things, and that Lontano mentions that he felt a shift in the ground only supports my point further.

"So, I repeat, we have a definite historical precedence toward earthquakes, and I for one am determined to pinpoint the cause of these cataclysms. After all, it is only when we have some understanding for Nature – since we clearly have more respect for it now than ever – that we can adapt to its possibilities an rebuild accordingly. To come out of this without an effort to understand would not only be a complacent and quick fix, but it would be near criminal to rebuild without trying to make things safer."

At all the talk of the word "rebuild," the crowd began to whisper and murmur and cast many uneasy glances toward the remains of Redwall.

"Good that I have your attention," Andreas continued. "Any search for understanding must start with what we do know, as I have just presented to you. It works the same way with physical features. I would like to have an expedition to search out and delineate the path of destruction with the goal of finding its source, and I feel there is no better place to start looking than the southern cliffs, where the precedent was set.

"Now, this may be my initiative, but it is an expedition that applies to all of you, as you are all here listening because the earthquake so intruded upon your lives. While I may know the history, I am no all-exhaustive expert. For that sake, for objectivity's sake, and for safety's sake, I would like several creatures to accompany me. There may be no cryptic rhymes or swords, but this is the most important riddle facing us right now." Andreas concluded his speech and rested his forepaws on the two books he had just presented, gazing out over the murmuring crowd.

With surprisingly little hesitation, Hayward the hare sprang out of the sea of anonymity and came up to Andreas' side. "I say, count me in any day, I'll take a quest over a battle right out, wot wot!" The hare tipped an ear toward the marten "And asides, Walden and I came across some bally strange things on our jaunt over from Salamandastron. I'd bet a billion to one that they tie right in to your project, and I can show you where they are. Hayward Hollister at your service, sah!"

As Hayward enlisted himself, Elsinore pushed her way out of the audience as well, not as fast as the hare but as every bit as purposeful. Andreas smiled gently at the mole as she spoke. "Zurr Andras, oi volunteer moi services. Oi know a fair bit abaout rocks, and the graound still nearly swallowed me aloive. Oi would like to know why." Elsinore nodded and stood by Hayward.

"Anyone else?" Andreas offered. Any chance of an immediate response was cut short by a brief shake and a groaning and cracking from the direction of Redwall. Many of the aftershocks to this point had been larger than this one, but its two seconds were still enough to drive home a point.

At the sound of the cracking, Garlock sprang reflexively forward, fear actually illuminating a point in his mind. Here was a chance to understand what had happened to his Falla, while also doing service to Mossflower that would earn their service in return without requiring him to deal with more than three beasts who were not his concern. The ferret approached the expedition group and extended a stiff paw to Andreas. "I am Garlock of Darkhill. My town was leveled, and I will come with you."

Andreas shook the paw, content with the size of the party. "Thank you," he addressed Hayward, Elsinore, and Garlock. "Thank you," again to the larger crowd. "We'll leave as soon as we can pull together, and while it is possible that the trail will bring is back here in passing before the investigation is complete, I hope to be able to show you a mark on a map to explain this by the time we take up residence here again."


	9. Chapter 9

The following morning broke warm and clear, with gentle streaks of cirrus clouds carrying the colors of the sunrise to new depths and highlights and with only the softest of breezes running through the trees and grasses and the exposed fur of the creatures sleeping on the ground. In short, it was a morning very much like the one several days ago, only different in terms of mental atmosphere from the moments before the world came tumbling down. The mentality of insects was also different, though; as with the opposite case on Nameday eve, it took Andreas longer than he would have liked to realize that their chorale had resumed. Yet while the marten had not recognized that the long absence was one of foreboding, the return registered with him as part of the process of easing back into normalcy, which Andreas could think of as a decidedly good omen for the outset of the exploratory journey.

Andreas, Hayward, Elsinore, and Garlock departed from Redwall at the same point of morning at which the temblor had rolled in several days ago, only with considerably less fanfare. This early start was a mutual decision between the four – Hayward had always been an insufferable morning person, which was quite evident to all around him; Andreas felt that longer traveling days allowed for more time to be spent on observing details, which he explained as a goal up front; Garlock, still weary, wanted to get it over with but chose to remain silent on the matter; and Elsinore had always been an agreeable and compromising beast, her only request being that the taller creatures did not walk too fast for her to keep up.

All four carried flour sacks full of enough rations for three days, as it was assumed that the forest could provide for their upkeep beyond that point, and also that traveling lighter would be an advantage when faced with the possibility of unchartedly changed terrain. Andreas had nevertheless brought the volume of records containing Lontano's map, both for general reference and for comparing the changes against the establishment. The marten also was accompanied by his personal journal, which was quickly becoming a more important record than the official book that he had left at Redwall.

But regardless of who was carrying the map, Hayward led the way on the first leg of the journey. The path was, so far, still as Andreas had always known it, but his questions as to the nature of what Hayward was leading to were met with vague and evasive replies. No matter how much Andreas insisted that scientific investigation required as much prior knowledge as possible so as to better explain the eventual results, Hayward assured him with a wholly teasing tone that he simply couldn't find the proper words to explain what he had found, and that the visual presentation was really the only way to cover it. As far as Andreas was concerned, good-humored conversation and this sort of joking were two different things, but the marten weathered the hare's dodging patiently, knowing that he would not end up actually being devoid of explanation.

The quartet continued along through the peaceful spring green of Mossflower, trees arching over the path, apparently unaware of much of the calamity that had just passed, even though individual buildings or entire little towns situated between the trees and in artificial clearings were in a range of states of disrepair, from rampant cases of fallen chimneys all the way to total deconstruction. These outposts were invariably abandoned, their surviving citizens having fled toward Redwall or the larger cities further inland as soon as the ground had permitted motion upon it rather than from within it. Thus, the four travelers were aurally stimulated only by their own conversation and by the increasing level of ambient chatter from the smaller creatures of the forest.

Slightly after the sun had reached its highest point in the sky, Garlock pointed a claw toward a little cluster of apple trees in a fringe of foliage next to a truly decimated wooden house. Still-forming fruit hung early off the green boughs while many other trees still hosted only flowers, inviting even despite the food in the flour sacks. Elsinore shifted uneasily at the proposition, a gesture that meant nothing to Garlock and to the stomach-motivated Hayward. It was only when Andreas assured her that Nature was providing where Nature had previously destroyed that the mole selected some windfalls of her own.

At first, the four sat under the arching branches of the apple tree in silence, chewing and enjoying the hard sourness while firmly planted on soft but solid soil. Elsinore was the first to open up any sort of mealtime conversation. "So…when we foind what zurr Hayward is talking abaout, will we follow those soigns or will we go on saoutheast to the big cliffs anyway?"

Hayward appeared very excited at the question, but he had to concede judgment on the matter. "Well, I would have bally well liked to check the thing out there and on the spot he first time, but there wasn't the time for it right then, wot. But we'll get there and see certain enough, and I'd say our fearless leader Mister Andreas would be able to point to the true and proper course from there, isn't that right, old chap?"

Andreas spat a seed into his paw, dug a little pit with one claw, deposited the seed in it, and gave the ground a gentle pat. "Right, we'll have to see. Though I would certainly be able to say the more likely turn of our route if I knew what we were coming upon." The marten fixed a gaze upon the hare like a teacher eliciting a response from a student who he knows is not speaking due to sheer laziness.

Hayward smirked, wriggling with the joy of this secret discovery kept all to himself.

"Why are we heading south first?" Garlock cut in. "Yes, you said the precedent is south, but if you know something is there already, why return to it? It is clear that this has had just as dire effects up north, if not worse than here."

"In order to see the control before setting out on the uncharted experiment," Andreas responded, tone simple despite his terminology.

"So then why the uncertainty of route after this? Why the hare's little surprise first? If it's the control, shouldn't you know precisely where we're going?" Garlock's gaze flicked to the overly-content Hayward.

Andreas rested his free forepaw on Lontano's mapbook. "Either way, we will have to double back over the space between Redwall and the crevasse, so it is a better method to go a different way in each direction. A more thorough look at the two paths and how they were effected before we go further north."

"And also, it's still right frigid up north, isn't it, my dear ferret?" Hayward gleamed at Garlock. "We go south first, then by the time we scoot our way back up there, it'll be spring right and proper, eh wot!"

Garlock glanced down at his chipped claws, then regarded Hayward as icily as the hare was presuming the northern temperatures to be. "I happen to find it a refreshing and preferable climate over swimming in humidity or baking in the desert."

Elsinore, having come beyond her objection to eating apples that did not belong to her, looked over from scooping several clawfuls of the fallen little fruit into her sack. "Oi think we are going in the direction we have been going and we'll be sure to go boi everything loike zurr Andras wants. We will get to everywhere we need to be soon enough."

Whether Elsinore was being merely circular or soundly logical, Hayward and Garlock seemed at least momentarily appeased by the mole's remark. Andreas shut Lontano's mapbook on cue, as if Elsinore was clarifying the route for him as well.

The quartet of creatures left no discernible dent in the amount of fruit left in the little orchard, leaving it and the abandoned farmhouse by the wayside as they continued down the path, hunger and thirst having been satiated by the sour fruit. The surrounding woods showed more and more signs of abandoned civilization as the path headed toward the coast, and the light filtering down through the canopy and glancing off the individual leaves and the dancing dust motes took on an almost unnaturally-highlighted cast as both the path and the sun aimed westward.

It was roughly four in the afternoon when Hayward's lips started pushing toward a grin of excitement that became harder and harder for him to contain as the walking continued. Clear on his surroundings, the hare slowed his gait slightly, falling out of his position as the directional leader of the party. Garlock suddenly found himself in that position instead, and just when the ferret appeared as if he were going to point out how, as the leader, he could now choose the direction of travel, he found himself at the end of the path, with an edge of disturbed dirt and an obviously ancient tree in front of him.

Garlock whirled around on his heels, displeased to come face-to-face with a positively sparkling-grinned Hayward. "What are you trying to pull, lopears?" the ferret snarled, displeasure only thinly covering a stark note of fear and alarm. "Dragging us up to some trick nowhere in the middle of the woods so you can…ah…so you can…" Garlock's accusation fell flat as he failed to think of a possible motive for such treachery.

Hayward's fluorescent grin did not dim. "No, this is the weird thing I was talking about, eh wot!" The hare gabbed Andreas' paw and pointed it off to the right. "Take a gander over there, my dear companion!"

Andreas followed the path of his arm with his eyes, looking beyond where Hayward was pointing him. His gaze crossed a small band of woodland marked by a stripe of disturbed soil that ran perpendicular to the edge of the interrupted path, then followed that stripe to where it intersected the start of another path, on the same plane as where he stood but a good twenty feet to the right and blocked by some solid upright trees. The marten's eyes widened in disbelief and excitement. He pulled his paw out of Hayward's grasp and printed the twenty feet to the other side.

Hayward lept to Andreas' side and Garlock, reluctantly impressed, trailed along as well. "Great Martin, Matthias, and Methuselah!" the marten marveled. "Twenty feet. It moved twenty feet!" It was as if the unforgettable images of destruction had actually fled his mind for that moment of the rush that comes with the realization and proof of something truly incredible.

"So that's really the very crack where it all moved, eh wot?" Pride in his own share of the discovery mixed with the inquisitiveness in Hayward's voice.

Andreas turned on the path, looking to the right again at the displaced section of road from whence they'd come. "It has to be! There's be no other reason for such a cut, particularly not with how these trees appear to have grown relative to the road. But they didn't grow there, of course, because they were moved!"

"That seems roight," Elsinore noted. At the arrival at the displaced road, the mole had dropped to all fours, crawling her way along the torn and upward-pushed line linking the segments of the road, scooping several rocks and clawfuls of dirt up to eye level for investigation along the way. She had only then come up to where the three other beasts stood. "This graoud is freshly moved and it was torn hard – the patches of rocks doan't match up and the plants are split abaout the middle, too."

All four creatures fell silent now, considering he relatively narrow line and the massive displacement, and the collective eight eyes moved in tandem beyond one section of the road and then the other, lingering on the continuation of the narrow track in both directions.

Garlock broke the silence at last. "We'll be following that line, I assume?"

"Clearer than any path," Andreas responded.

Thus, the quartet continued on its way, following Nature's own delineated route, which was indeed more true of a course than the right-angled path that had been created by living paws. The line was shockingly straight, inorganically straight almost, slicing the landscape like the purposefully-laid railroad tracks that Andreas so disliked, yet undeniably wrought by a perversion of the Nature that usually preferred to create gentle curves and tapered edges. It was sometimes little more than a stripe of cleared grass, but in other places its manifestation expanded to a thrown-up pile of dirt nearly as tall Elsinore, and in yet other places the entire forest floor on one side of the boundary was slightly lifted relative to the other side before warping back down to relative levelness. At some points, the terrain was torn outward and cracked in parallel to the main line, and in other places, the smoothness was practically unfathomable compared to what else they had seen, both by way of landforms and destruction caused by the motion.

The expedition crossed several small streams, their beds displaced in the same manner as the road and the water flowing in an uncertain trickle from one section to the other. They crossed several more roads, offset like the first though to varying degrees of extremity. They crossed one railroad line, now twisted and curved, the rails wrenched apart at the offset and broken edge. And the forest, as always, alternated between patches of dense undergrowth, more widely-spaced trees, and the occasional clearing – and the type of woods through which Andreas, Hayward, Elsinore, and Garlock traveled could be predicted by what was on the other side of the line, or even chosen by crossing it.

They walked until it was barely light enough to follow the visible trace on the forest floor, then elected to set up camp between what appeared to be two pleasingly-symmetrical massive maple trees. As they narrowed in on the spot, though, they came to the realization that these "two" trees were really one organism. The ground trace lined up with the two halves as it had with the road – the unfortunate tree had grown directly on top of the dormant fault and had been neatly sliced into two as the ground ruptured and slid past itself.

With this revelation, a camp between the tree's halves became far less comforting in its symmetry, but the exhaustion of a day of walking piled upon the exhaustion of the rest of the week also made it clear that none of the four were keen on the idea of getting up and walking further to a less disconcerting site. Thus, with their last dregs of energy running dry, it was the most the four could do to move themselves and their scant belongings to one side of the line before going to sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Even with the departure of the four beasts and the continued grim discoveries of dead bodies trapped in the fallen stonework, the number of creatures at Redwall's ruins was actually increasing. The residual populations of smaller towns throughout the land had been going through similar assessment processes to the ones at Redwall – coming to the senses after the quake, replenishing energy, counting the dead or missing, and, too commonly, realizing just how structurally flawed all the buildings in their towns had been. All too many of them were of the unfounded belief that political importance and historical and social standing served to make a building impervious to the effects of earthquakes or other natural disasters, and therefore they all set off for the Abbey of Redwall itself and the metropolitan area several miles to its back. As they trickled in, each creature from each town who might have had false hopes about Redwall's structural integrity had that hope thrown off course as drastically as any road or streambed. Yet their towns were no better, and they had come this far, so they stayed and pitched in to the effort, the only thing that they really had left to do.

And creatures started arriving from the larger cities as well. Many of the citizens of the true capital city behind the Abbey had been at Redwall itself for Nameday, though the collapses of their empty homes were just as thorough – though perhaps less dramatic – as that of the great historical landmark. For those who had remained in the city, though, the swathe of woodland kept in place to retain the image of Redwall being entirely cloaked in forest became more vast. The problems of the collapsed Abbey were replicated many times, though on a smaller scale, in the city, and the search parties and mourners there did not think to bridge the gap until their own problems were slightly more in check. Only then did city officials, newly-homeless citizens, and even the occasional architect make the short trip to the fallen center of the county.

Such beasts came from the more distant cities, too – from beyond Salamandastron, from the urban centers that had spring up around Castle Floret to the south and Noonvale to the north, from the trade centers in the western coastal woods to the outposts on the far northeast coast. These cities suffered the same sorts of internal devastation as the main Mossflower City, but like with the smaller towns and villages, the events alighted an instinctual decision to send representatives and helpers (be they medics, engineers, or anybeast claiming a relevant specialization) to the capital.

In an ordinary situation, this travel from even the most extreme corners of Mossflower County would have been a pleasant and scenic train journey, occupying at most the better part of a long summer afternoon. As things stood following the great earthquake, however, the trains were at a standstill. Either the rails themselves had been torn up and twisted from their proper routes or there were no trains to be had on the lucky surviving tracks. The morning runs had not yet started when the tremors stuck, so all the trains were in their stations at the end of the line, while their conductors were caught up in the turmoil. With this network out of commission, all aimed for Redwall had to walk there and take in what Nature had inflicted upon civilization and upon itself as they came.

But as the population directly around the devastated Abbey increased, the nature of the work there changed. The fresh paws and personalities and tales of woe and commiseration served well to combat the overbearing dirgelike atmosphere that had accompanied the work to this point. The workers began to split into more specialized crews. Larger and sturdier beasts with a higher pain threshold continued to play through the rubble of Redwall in search of bodies, or, for the particularly hopeful among them, in search of survivors. Specialist medical doctors and general nurses alike were able to set up a makeshift clinic, where beasts who had sustained small injuries in the quake could finally have them looked at after so many days. Moles and any other creature who fancied himself a good paw with a shovel set to work digging individual graves for the row of uncovered and labeled bodies, and a few of the artistically-inclined survivors had already set to brainstorming a relevant design for the grave markers of the fallen as well as for a more elaborate memorial to the entire event.

And then there were the engineers and architects, few in number but intense in focus of presence. They discussed what they had seen of the mechanics of the collapse (though this was the bit of the conversation with the least information exchanged, as all of the architects and engineers ultimately admitted to having run off or crouched down with their paws over their eyes), what of the resulting piles of rubble, and of how to handle such a thing. Where would the debris go, as it was generally to o disassembled to have specific reuse capabilities? What could be put up instead and what could be used to do so? How does one solve the problem of keeping a building upright when its very foundation is being jostled about beneath it? Was that even possible, and how could a test for the plausibility of it be conducted? And was it even worth the time and energy to reconstruct with uncertain new types of structures on a land that had just shook itself free of a large amount of life and buildings could very well decide to do it again with just as little warning as the first time? And where to go from that possibility?

The political council representatives engaged in similar discussion, though in a different light. While things seemed to be functioning surprisingly well in the present, what when a greater sense of order as needed? Who would fill in the positions that had been crushed into emptiness by the quake? And where would that all take place? Throughout the region, the central legislative buildings had taken the hatreds hits from the shaking. Many had indeed been designed after Redwall itself, and even those which had not were still constructed on a principle of being the highest and most central point for a town. In line with the principle of falling chimneys even if the rest of a smaller building remained standing, those high elaborate buildings had the farthest to fall – and most had fallen as far as they could. So what to do with those thrown-out centers? Should they all be rebuilt as before, only with more supports? Should Redwall be restored to its former shape but the others all redesigned? What was symbolically necessary? Should reconstruction be done in the same place at all?

As such thoughts were bandied about, the number of creatures present grew ever larger, bringing more assistance, yes, but also more opinions, diversifying but also creating further impasses as the discussions drew out longer.

Though all of the activity around Redwall was of very mixed company in terms of species representation, the appearance of a large group comprised primarily of weasels, ferrets, and stoats, with the occasional rat or fox thrown in streaming slowly but steadily toward the site of the Abbey was more cause to take notice than the trickle of mixed-species arrivals that had become common over the past several days. Many of the newcomers were dressed in dirty and torn specimens of what had once been respectable clothing before the wearers had had to dig out of disaster, but just as many were dressed in the more formless outfits characteristic of the less urbanized, sometimes still nomadic, citizens of the far north – or, in short, the irregialr uniform of a vermin horde. Yet their fces, even with their tangled fur and myriad scars, showed not even ambient aggression. The general posturing was destitute, wracked with disappointment and with the shock of unforeseen natural terror that had so quickly managed to surpass the effects of any war that they had ever waged. And, be it from collapsed armories or in reaction to that unimaginable loss of life, the larges object that could bee construed as a weapon that any member of the horde carried was a mere utility pocketknife.

The bedraggled column was headed by several of the better-dressed beasts. The most striking among them was a tall female weasel, her fur a light silver entirely unrelated to her mere middle age, her eyes a peculiar dark stormy green. Clad in a neatly-cut militaristic suit that oddly matched the color of her eyes, she indisputably stood out as the leader among those following her. This throng, however, halted before imposing upon the space used by the Mossflowerites for regrouping. The silver weasel alone progressed into the scene, looking about gravely, ears twitching sensitively to judge the content of the conversations that had grown softer and less focused with the arrival of her followers. After some deliberation, the weasel strode purposefully toward Ruta's circle of political envoys from other cities.

The badger gave the weasel a long lookover, more weary than wary but not entirely off guard. Her expression in itself spoke a request for identification that had been repeated until the words were so practiced that they were no longer necessary.

"You are Ruta, yes?" the weasel chanced, her voice tired but still possessing a peculiar strength.

"I am," the badger responded, squinting slightly at the weasel, then gazing past her to consider those who had come along. "You are from Darkhill?" she asked, evaluating the species distributing and wagering an assumption.

"I am Rhynn of the Northridge Horde," the weasel returned. "I am our liaison with Darkhill, and as neither their mayor Garlock nor his mate Falla seem to have survived, I feel it is my responsibility to step to the fore."

Ruta nodded slowly. "Garlock is alive. He arrived here two days after the earthquake and has since left on an expedition to determine its causes."

Rhynn's silver brows raised slightly. "It is good, then, that Garlock has chosen to compensate for abandoning Darkhill and leaving it in the paws of a hordebeast," here the weasel smiled inwardly, "by making an effort to understand what destroyed it."

The badger let out a rumble of consideration. "If it is not your town, why are you so invested in it?"

"We share a boundary," Rhynn explained simply. "A matter of coexistence since the war, with Darkhill and thus also with Mossflower. It has worked quite well."

"And now your Northridge Horde is here unopposed," Ruta stated evenly.

"Please," Rhynn cut back, a slight edge to her town. "It's hardly Mossflower anymore, is it? Everything that made it Mossflower has gone to dust, all the landmarks and their history. All that's left is struggling creatures on the land, same as before any of this was built in the first place, same as in Darkhill, same as in the far Northlands." The weasel waved a wide sweep in the air, indicating the entire scene. "We're no better off than you are, and you're not better off than we are any longer. All those political boundaries are effectively gone, and supposing we were here on the premise of invasion, imperialism would be pretty useless without the boundaries. It's a perfect case to undo so much the past has done."

Rhynn extended a steady silver paw toward Ruta, hard green eyes locking in to the brown irises of the badger. "I offer you the Northridge Horde – anything we can provide for you in this time of mutual hardship – if you can bring it upon yourselves to come down and do the same for us. Foodstuffs and agriculture, workforce beastpower, defenses and armaments. If you can afford it for us here, or on ships leading away from this broken land if that's where it all goes, we are there. I, at least, can offer that this ancient rivalry crumbled as completely as the ancient buildings did."

Ruta considered the weasel and her words, as well as the words that she herself had spoken so recently to Garlock, and she enveloped the offered paw in her own.


	11. Chapter 11

Hayward awoke to the sun filtering down through the leaves and flickering irregular patches of light across his snout and eyelids. Wriggling his whiskers as if the light itself tickled, the hare stretched out to his full height along the ground, even his fingers, toes, and eartips engaging in the motion. He yawned loudly and luxuriously, at last opening his eyes to the fresh new morning. He squinted into the light upward, looked ahead into the foliage, and then glanced to the side at the half of the maple tree that stood directly next to him.

Eyes flying open to their widest possible point and ears pointing vertically, the hare bolted upright and scooted forward on his tail, only looking back after several yards. Hayward let out a squeak of alarm in the realization from afar that he had, indeed, shifted positions in his sleep and spent goodness knows how long with his back on the fault line itself. Though it was quite evident to any other creature that he was still in a single undisplaced piece, he carefully felt up and down his back to be absolutely certain.

"If it had moved during the night, you probably would have felt in time to move away before you went the way of that tree." Morbid statement though it could have been, Andreas' voice carried a strong current of amusement as he addressed the hare. The marten rested against a solidly round-trunked tree to the side of the crack, the black notebook in his lap and Lontano's map spread out beside him.

Hayward's already-stiffened ears swiveled toward the marten and only began to relax when he was certain that his traveling companion was speaking, rather than some sort of malevolent earth spirit. "Sure bally well didn't warn us like that the first time, eh wot."

"I suspect it would have done a little more clarification of its intentions if we had been this close several days ago." Andreas spoke with comforting logic, though he internally thanked fate tat he had not been directly across the moving line at that time.

Hayward rose to his footpaws and came up next to Andreas, peering over the marten's shoulder. "Wot are you writing about there?"

Andreas lifted his paws off the book, indicating dense writing on one side of the page and a carefully-rendered (though somewhat simplified) copy of Lontano's map on the other. The Recorder had added dark lines across the known streams, roads, and rail lines that they had crossed and found to be displaced. "I'm keeping track of where we've been and what we've found," he explained, hovering a claw over their route so far. "That's our responsibility as inquirers into the workings of Nature. The only way we can hope to understand is by keeping track of what we see." Andreas shut his eyes and gently closed his notebook. "And if we do not make the best map possible of this thing, there would be no way to rebuild taking it properly into account."

Hayward bobbed his head in reference to the marten's explanations. "You get this all marked up and sorted out like you say you will, old chap, and you'll be bally well saving Mossflower and we'll sure and certain be seeing things named after you in the history books, wot wot."

Andreas turned his smile on Hayward, then gestured toward the still-sleeping forms of Garlock and Elsinore. "Perhaps. But now we need those two awake. Tell them that you'll be appropriating their breakfasts if they don't get ready to move on."

Elsinore and Garlock did comply under the hare's dire warnings and did manage to secure their rations for the rest of the expedition. Sore muscles from walking and from night after night without a proper bed were a shared complaint, yet the intrepid quartet persisted onward, their goals ranging from the most lofty of beneficial aims to the most critical of scientific measurements to the most personal of rationalizations and appeasements.

Mountains loomed on the horizon even early in the morning, their gray rock faces first misinterpreted as low clouds between the leaves ahead, then discernable as solid as the distance before them decreased. As far as Andreas could recall in his extensive but nod exhaustive readings, there had not been much proper exploration of these southwestern peaks and ranges. He could vaguely recall one article on the matter – one several centuries old that spoke only of a range split by a narrow valley with straight lakes along it. Lontano was even strangely silent on the matter, having only indicated the presence of this band of mountains on his map. Thus, as the four travelers followed the fault trace into the foothills of the looming range, Andreas in particular felt a sense of excitement at the further uncharted wonders welling up within him.

The members of this range were not the classic sharp-edged peaks that an artist might provide if one requested a representation of mountains. Their distant silhouette might have been cut out against the sky that way, but their otherness became apparent when one surrounded oneself in this scenery. The faces of these peaks were not cleaved out of the earth but seemed to ripple up through it, starting low and bubbling up higher and higher in general contour, then the same rippling process manifested again across the faces of the individual mountains, and sometimes again within that. The soil and rock were waved and folded, practically a crystallized version of the terrible ground waves that had set the whole adventure off, only with the occasional sharpened edge on a crest or the twisted path of a trough, and occasionally the whole system warped to one direction. This rippling on the mountain face did not ease out at an angled slope from the valley floor, but rather, after similarly rippled flat-topped hills, rose nearly perpendicular to the ground.

Curling in around the topographical curves of the mountains were bands of color, clear in the spring air and brought out by the spring foliage. Different sorts of rocks layered their way through the range, striping grays and beiges, oranges and reds, and even whites and blacks. Sometimes the alternation was straightforward, sometimes it curved lazily, sometimes one band would jut abruptly across another, and sometimes, as with the rippling, the whole sequence would be offset from itself. Shrubs clung tenaciously to the steep mountain faces, sprinkling verdancy and also floral whites and pinks against the dusty hues of rock.

The valley between the bookends of folded mountains was as it had been described so basically in the account that Andreas had read. It was far narrower than any valley any of the four had ever seen before, with the vertical orientation of the mountains serving to make it seem even more closed in for the lack of space above. The sky was straight up, but it manifested as just as narrow of a strip as the valley itself was, the other end of the box formed by the mountains. Peculiar elongated lakes stretched periodically along the valley floor, always longer than they were wide and oriented in the same direction. Some were barely ponds and others stretched on for long enough to give the impression of walking a long a stream rather than a self-contained lake. When these finally did come to their ends, the appearance was puzzling, like a river that was simply ceasing to go anywhere. This impression was detracted from mainly by the fact that investigations showed these pools to be motionless and mirror-still on the surface, despite the puzzling lack of stagnancy or buildup of algae and plants.

And the fault trace, too, became a different sort of physical feature when it transitioned into the narrow valley that it had indeed created nearly by itself over the eons. What had been a relatively flat feature for the journey thus far, kicking up narrow ridges that were not even as tall as most full-grown creatures and directing everything that crossed it to the right, took on quite a bit more vertical character. The occasional upward tilting of one side of the trace became a constant in the valley, at first by several inches, then by a foot, then by several, forming a feature that was too large to be called a step but not quite so imposing as to be called a genuine cliff. The vertical plane that now represented the fault rater than just a disturbed line on the ground was an exposed swathe of soil. The top edge was weathered and loose, crumbling and eroding at wind and rain and shaking along it, but the dirt at the very bottom of the long escarpment, where it met the properly horizontal ground, was darker and more compact, streaked with scrape marks and tiny fissures. This was soil that had had very newly been extruded from the earth's inside, a layer of skin that had been laid bare for the first time by the massive earthquake.

The four travelers had thought wisely to pick a side of the divide and stay on it as the altitude of the one side relative to the other changed. They found themselves on the higher of the sides, following a path neatly delineated by the upward-thrusted vertical mountains to the one side and the downward-plunging wall of the escarpment to the other. While there was in all actuality a perfectly safe amount of space in which to travel, the tricks of angles in this environment, considering the landforms and also taking the sun into account, made it feel more precarious.

As darkness climbed up the valley, Andreas, Hayward, Garlock, and Elsinore came to a weary stop at a point along the escarpment that looked down over one of the drawn-out lakes. The sun was setting behind the mountains, bringing the cool of evening with it as it cast its last streaks of warm color over the lake. Garlock slumped down against a boulder, too worn for a dignified posture. Elsinore came down on all fours and trundled about near the edge of the ledge, occasionally feeling over its side with an exploratory digging claw. Hayward plopped himself down on the edge as well, footpaws dangling over the drop like a child on a swing; the hare apparently did not relate this position to the one in which he was so alarmed to find himself that morning.

Andreas remained standing for a little while longer, gazing down the length of the mountain range in the last glow of light. It continued as far as he could see, the more distant peaks shadows behind the clear ones as the cool-edged starry darkness overtook them one by one. "It certainly is beautiful here," the marten observed out loud, though he may as well have been addressing the scenery itself as much as he could have been addressing his comrades.

"Beautiful?" Garlock looked critically over at Andreas, though his own intensity was also dimmed by the encroaching night. "How can you call it beautiful when it just systematically broke down every outpost of normal life we've ever known personally, and also every one we passed along the way? How can you be thinking about the scenery when you saw just as well how many creatures were slaughtered in this thing?" The ferret neglected to mention that he had not remained in Darkhill to support his own – indeed, he had practically convinced himself otherwise.

"Of course there is beauty and order in the following of chaos," Andreas responded. "All of the arts take that up as their pivotal points. One loses interest in a piece of music without dissonant buildup, one keeps reading a story to see what finality comes after all the characters' travails, and one would not even go to a play if one did not expect dramatic chaos. But then they all resolve, satisfying and wonderful and that makes them works of art rather than of destruction. And all creative artists have Nature as their prime model for inspiration. Nothing does it better. This place is the art in the aftermath."

Garlock had little use for Andreas' rhapsodizing. "We're still following a trail of destruction, clearer than any deep artistic meaning, and this thing swallowed creatures' wives alive." The ferret wrinkled his nose and threw his back harder against the rock.

Elsinore, through with her investigation of the edge of the escarpment, chose this moment to stick her digging claws into the discussion. "Oi foind it to be pretty amazing that the graound where we're standing and the graound daown there," she pointed off the edge, "used to be flat and level. Oi would have never thought it until Oi saw it in the soil like naow." The mole gave a tired a smile, managing to support both arguments at once.

With the implication of that great of a motion, even Andreas stepped back from the edge, choosing a sleeping spot closer to the mountains. And Hayward, having overheard Elsinore's comment, used his last energy to spring away from the ledge, a near repeat of that morning's performance, only ending in sleep rather than waking.


	12. Chapter 12

The otters were starting to wonder. Their jobs on the ships lining the coast of Mossflower Country were usually fairly stress free and without complication, but they usually were not bored by the work. Passing ships in the open ocean as well as smaller crafts coming in and out of the channels and harbors of Mossflower country usually provided interest and interaction enough. Over the course of the past week, however, virtually no ships had come into view even from the crows' nests – only one distant freighter to the west, and not a single vessel within the demarcated waterspace of Mossflower. At first, the border ships' captains came to their own independent conclusions that the slowed traffic was due to the Nameday celebrations, but as the lull hung on past the customary three days of the festival, the captains began just as independently to get suspicious.

On the evening of what would have been two days after the festivities ended, Leika Lutrovna steered the Ruddaring down the coast toward the next ship in the row. The Watercrest was the flagship of Mossflower Country, and its master, an otter named Streamrunner, was considered the Admiral of the proper Navy, even though that Navy had not needed to engage in any manner of warlike acts for years. The crew of the Watercrest was not becoming warlike in its boredom with the lack of traffic, but they were becoming tense and snippy, which was increasingly making Streamrunner want to retreat to his cabin rather than dealing with it all. It was his duty to stay on deck, though, but he felt quite relieved from that duty when the Ruddaring steamed up beside the Watercrest, bringing fresh creatures onto the scene, though worried ones.

Leika Lutrovna crossed over onto the Watercrest's deck, saluting Streamrunner as she did. The Admiral responded with a far more casual wave, setting the tone for the conversation despite the fact that the subject matter was, in all actuality, quite serious. "Wonderin' about the quiet, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir," Leika responded, a formal address in a more conversational tone.

Streamrunner flicked his whiskers. "I've been thinkin' on and off about it and I just can't fathom a reason at all. Sure never happened like this before."

Leika squinted out toward the shore. "Could it have anything to do with that bump, you think? That little storm without the actual weather?" The captain of the Ruddaring had sent word to the Watercrest later on the day of the disturbance, and Streamrunner reported the odd waves as well, but neither otter had any idea then either, so they had taken to referring to it as the storm without a storm.

"Really only one way to know," Streamrunner noted with a shrug. "And I'd been thinkin' it was about time to pay the folks on land a little visit about this fishy business anyway. You bring that funny record of yours along and we'll ask if anything came up around the same time."

"Admiral Streamrunner, I was not expecting to go…" Leika began, but Streamrunner cut her off.

"Relax, it'll be good t' get off the water a bit. The Speedwell can take on as temporary flagship and lighthouse, and it's not as if we're expectin' to be inundated with ships all of a sudden!"

Leika Lutrovna could not argue with Streamrunner's point, and as the two otters rowed toward shore early the next morning, the captain of the Ruddaring had to admit that the change of scenery was nice. Even though the scenery was odd. A fine layer of stirred-up dust lay over much of the stable undergrowth in the woods, muting the color in a sense that neither otter could feel good about attributing to mere glorified memory of the place.

As the two walked and chatted about those memories, they were halted momentarily by a flicker of a wriggle against their footpaws, enough to cause a minor trip-up but not so large as to instigate a fall. Leika and Streamrunner looked at each other and scuffed at the ground, not able to even properly describe what the thought they had felt, and thus agreeing to write that off as mere exhaustion. The pair continued toward Redwall, taking no note of the leaves that had been dislodged by the wiggle and were drifting downwards.

Midway into the morning, as Streamrunner was commenting to Leika that there was something decidedly odd about the path being as undisturbed by recent pawsteps as the sea had been from ships, he stopped in his tracks and thumped his rudderlike tail heavily on the ground. One side of the otter's face scrunched upward, whiskers bristling out, teeth partially exposed, one eye narrowed into a squint as he faced the abrupt end of the path.

Leika Lutrovna came up beside the Admiral and felt her jaw practically unhinge at the discovery of the sharp cut of exposed soil that ended the road right there. "By my whiskers…" she murmured.

A scan of the ground ahead revealed the continuation of the displaced road, nearly twenty feet to the right. As soon as Streamrunner's eyes caught on it, he grabbed Leika's paw and tugged her over to the continuation of the path and down it, grave urgency determining his pace. "This is far more than just fishy now," he barked. "We can't waste any more time."

The otters sprinted along the second leg of the path, forcing themselves to keep up the pace despite the fact that their muscles were screaming at them to slow down. Streamrunner started to flag, though, as the spire of Redwall's bell tower failed to materialize above the trees as he was used to. Leika did not try to speed him up again. It was ultimately fortunate that their motion had decreased in its potential energy, so that their very abrupt halt upon coming upon the site of Redwall Abbey did not cause collisions or thrown-out knees.

Both the spectacular damage and the recognition of the beasts of the Northridge Horde hit Streamrunner like a weighted hammer from behind, one blow right after the other with no reprieve. He scanned the area for an explanation and very nearly felt a third blow upon noticing his comrade from the Northern War, Rakarde, hauling stones alongside several hordebeasts. The blow of feared capture was intercepted, though, as he drew in closer and realized that there was a genuine, though quiet, cooperation as the beasts worked to clean up what was left of Redwall.

Streamrunner approached Rakarde and rested an uneasy paw on the block of red sandstone that the fox held. "What in the seas and skies happened here, mate?" the otter queried.

Rakarde looked at his compatriot, sadness and disbelief flickering in his amber eyes. "An earthquake, Streamrunner." His tone was a comparable mix of solemnity and incredulity to his expression. "How did you not know?"

"An earthquake," Streamrunner repeated, peering down at the soil between his footpaws. "I don't know how we couldn't know! But the ship barely rocked, solid vessel that she is…An' I still don't know. Blast it…an earthquake!" The otter shook his head.

"Be glad you missed it. Doesn't get you glory like the battlefield does." Rakarde's gaze did not leave the otter's face.

Streamrunner scuffed his footpaws and made the same confused and mistrusting face that he had made upon discovering the displaced road. "But how do the vermin come into it all, eh?"

Rakarde shrugged, the gesture made smaller by the weight of the sandstone in his paws. "They're working with us. Their leader – not the one we fought against, mind you – just showed up and proposed truce and we're working together. She offered up the whole horde's services, call them what you will, and even offered their ships to clear out of here if it heads that way." The fox did not sound entirely trusting.

"Leave? The word sounded foreign even as Streamrunner spoke it, but at as he looked about the devastated scene and at the chunk of Redwall in Rakarde's arms, the otter's face took on a cast of understanding. "Well, if it heads that way," he declared, stiffening in military fashion, "my ships are up for the service as well, safely bound for wherever the case may be, servin' Mossflower as always. I'll let that be known!"

-----

Crysantema had already received herbal remedies for her fainting spells. Enruso had already been shown breathing exercises designed to counteract impending panic attacks rather than to optimize vocal production. Therefore, when the marten Maestro Liedswelt approached the makeshift infirmary for a third time, it was all the workers could do to not comment on how they did not wish to deal with any more operatic and melodramatic pseudo-trauma. Most of them were quite relieved when the ferretmaid Aetantim came forward to deal with the conductor.

"What's the concern now?" Aetantim asked, trying to smile as best she could, considering the circumstances. "Have your stars been ignoring their instructions?"

Liedswelt squinted at the ferret, shaking his head slowly. "No, no, they're fine. I'm here for myself this time."

Deeper concern crept into Aetantim's expression. "What do you need?"

"Well, for one, I can't see well without my spectacles," the marten began with only half of what could be considered conviction. But then he let out a long and ragged sigh. "I just don't know. I just can't deal with it! But I am supposed to be the rock, the steady example of support and guidance for my ensemble!"

Aetantim winced at Liedswelt's poor choice of metaphor. "Even rocks aren't always solid. Even rocks break down and move. It's…natural." She sounded unconvinced on the last word, or perhaps more that she wished that she were not so convinced of it.

"I don't want to have to be the strong one right now," Liedswelt confessed. The normally hard and bright countenance flickered with silent sobs. "It makes no sense to me. I've lived always for my music – music is beautiful, music is natural, natural beauty is music! I hear every environment I enter just as much as I see them, maybe more. I play music to enter an environment. I write music to create environments! It is the purest natural process for me! But this? It made noise, but I do not hear this. This is not music! How can this be natural? How can such a beautiful world do this?! I don't understand it! How can the world itself choose to take so many lives on its own discretion, with no reason – so many productive and innocent lives? I don't understand it!"

Liedswelt let out another heavy breath and looked at Aetantim, the fur around his myopic eyes damp. "How can I be any sort of leader in that when I feel that Nature has caused this hurt?"

"I think you do not have to be strong right now," Aetantim offered, tentatively placing a paw on the Maestro's shoulder. "It would be just as unnatural for you to try."

Liedswelt sniffled, then spoke again, pleasing. "But you must find Jacinth! I know she must be dead, but you still must find her! I cannot bear to think of all those beasts I never knew trapped under those piles of stone, but to know of her face in there? That would be too weak of me to let that pass. You must find her, for her family and hometown, for the Opera, for my troubled thoughts that I was not strong enough to protect her from Nature no matter how well I know Music…please?"

Aetantim regarded the little marten in silence for a moment, then noted, distant at first, "It takes many creatures to run this clinic…but we are getting more each day." The ferret reached out and gently clasped her paws around Liedswelt's trembling ones. "I can go find her."


	13. Chapter 13

There are times when setting an alarm serves to wake one up even earlier than the intended time. In knowing that it is not going to be a allowed a proper sleep cycle at any rate, the biological clock becomes attuned to or even wary of the mechanical one and calls a sleeper into the land of the waking in time to grumble at the earliness and then shut off the alarm before it has a chance to ring.

Garlock had not enjoyed being dragged out of much-needed sleep by way of hares that were even sunnier than the sun itself, and thus, when the ferret awoke on the third day of the expedition, he was pleased to note that his biological clock had anticipated this and that Hayward was still stretched out in an ungraceful sprawl several yards away, his narrow chest rising and falling in the slow breaths of slumber. Elsinore lay curled into a little ball several yards further away, a small black velveteen rock against a larger chunk of granite. Garlock's hope of some genuine solitude was dashed when he noted that Andreas was not among the sleepers.

As on the previous morning, the marten had propped his back up against a tree by the fault trace, with his black notebook held against his knees and Lontano's map spread out to his side. His gaze flicked at regular intervals between the map, the page on which he was writing, and at the magnificent folded mountains whose contours stood out brightly in the ascending morning light.

Garlock came up behind Andreas and watched the progression of the marten's pencil markings on the page for several minutes before remarking, "Just so pretty that you had to draw a picture, huh?"

Andreas looked evenly at Garlock. Thus far on the journey, every remark that the marten made about how the land was so amazing or about how he was so excited to have found something had been met with a less-than-agreeable glance from the ferret. His lack of surprise at the inevitable spoken words was obvious. "I'm marking and sketching the features we find to give the clearest representation to the council at Redwall, and to leave the most evidence for us and later scientists to determine how all of this works."

Garlock snorted. "Cut the big words and the impartial talk. You're crazy about this. It's your favorite thing you've ever done. Oh, the ground's opened up and swallowed Darkhill and Redwall and every creature in them alive? Oops, shame on it! Let's go on an adventure in the mountains!"

"You honestly thing that mapping and documenting the dangerous places is skirting around the issue?" Andreas continued to regard Garlock flatly and he moved his forepaws to obscure the markings in his notebook. "By knowing exactly where the danger lies and knowing how different kinds of ground are effected, when we rebuild, this can all be taken into account and Mossflower will emerge as a much safer country. Fewer lives will be lost in the future, and that is all that can be done."

"Rebuild?" the ferret practically spat, then laughed bitterly. "You of all creatures should have noticed how huge this thing is! It's down here and I know it goes up to Darkhill and we're getting further from there at each step. It's the whole country, Andreas. You're too caught up in pretty to see that. If we were a nation of smart beasts, we would have gotten up and left already."

Any response that the marten may have been preparing for Garlock was cut short by an altogether more cheerful voice. "I say, my good companions, if you go about shouting like that before the bally sun's even come all the way awake, how in blazes are you going to have the energy left to walk all day, eh wot?" Hayward, entirely full of energy, traipsed over toward the two mustelids, giving an admonishing wiggle with his ears.

Garlock could only press his lips tightly together at the hare's entrance, and Andreas shot Hayward a sidelong grateful glance. "You have an excellent point," the marten affirmed.

Elsinore, sensible and practiced at minding her own business, had set out an array of rations and fresh greens from the valley, and when the other three travelers snapped out of their debate, the mole offered a smile of weary tolerance. Breakfast progressed in near silence and at a slow pace; it was only the short shudder of a small aftershock that stirred the four back to their footpaws and the uncharted path ahead.

They continued through the mountains, the tall escarpment providing an arrow-straight path down the midline of the narrow valley, a direction marker far clearer than anything any living creature could have made. For all their scalloped edges and momentarily view-obstructing curves, the folded mountains clung to the line as if it were magnetic. In the current setting, the rows of peaks assumed much more of an air of stately guards escorting something in need of extensive protection rather than the raised welts of friction, tearing, and geophysical war centered on the battleline between them that they actually were.

The postures of each of the four travelers were quite distinct in relation to one another. Andreas, at the head of the progression, should have been looking straight ahead, but instead the marten focused his attention on the ground somewhat in front and mostly to the side, mentally noting every detail about the disturbed earth that he came across. Hayward, just behind Andreas and trying hard to clip his long gait to accommodate the others, took it upon himself to look ahead properly, a general direction finder who would occasionally have to warn the marten of upcoming trees. Garlock alternated between staring at his footpaws and staring straight ahead, though his gaze was unreceptive and unfocused within his noncompliant expression. And Elsinore, contrary to what might be expected for a mole, looked up and around, considering the mountains themselves with a curious dark eye.

Thus, Hayward saw the river first and Andreas was the first to notice how the entire streambed made a turn to the right as so many smaller creeks and rivulets did. Garlock paid no particular attention until Elsinore shouted, excitement inherent in the volume of her warm alto voice. "Zurrs, look up over here!"

The mole pointed a digging claw up at the mountains. Perhaps the river was a newer feature than the mountains itself, forming over them and eroding its bank downward. Or perhaps it had been there first, holding its ground and the land swelled up around it. Either way, it cut deeply through the rock, leveling its path and exposing the innards of the mountain in a spectacular display. Great stripes of different-colored rock streaked up the cut, starting straight and remaining roughly parallel to each other even as they were cut off and pinched in by another intrusive slab of stripes. The bands on this larger upper slab folded and twisted in around each other, forming arcs and curls and even irregular spirals of striped pattern on the exposed face. Bands of color-differentiated rock that had started out perfectly aligned crunched in on each other, some compressed into comparatively filigree-wide squiggles of color in the larger formation, others stretched to a point of being marked with fissures and cracks.

Elsinore traced the loop of the bands of rock in the air as Andreas, Garlock, and Hayward looked on. "That comes from pressure in the graound," she said, clearly pleased to be able to put some explanation into this work of natural art – a painting by appearance and a sculpture by method. "When you get a lot of pressure in a toight tunnel, moving durt and scraping against the tunnel walls, they get a little loike that. Only small and not permanent."

"Then that's right well got to be the most pressure on any poor sorry rock that there's ever been, eh wot!" Hayward observed, marveling at the rock face.

Wordlessly, Andreas pulled his black notebook out from his flour sack and opened to a blank page, breaking his habit of recording only at the break of day in order to sketch out the details of this striking feature while it was still before him. He trusted his memory on most things, but this was something that seemed so significant t him that he wasn't going to chance losing detail in waiting when he had the materials to record it right then and there.

Garlock was certain he knew what Andreas was thinking, and Andreas was equally certain of where Garlock's thoughts had gone on this. Thus, the opening lines of conversation were not required here and the ferret opened up with, "Imagine somebeast's tail hanging out of that pretty picture. Just the tail, with the rest stuck inside."

That imagery struck a look of horror across the marten's face, though only for several seconds. "Why must you focus on recalling the negative image when we have seen so much of it already? It was clear enough, and now good needs to be found. Consider the sheer power of nature to create this view – as I have said before, the first and ultimate artist! Here is the finesse in all that raw force! You cannot tell me that you do not find it to be beautiful, or at least incredible."

After a moment of consideration, Garlock realized grudgingly that he could not, in fact, tell Andreas that. The ferret bit down on his already-cracked lower lip in reaction and he stood with a glower alongside Hayward and Elsinore as they waited for Andreas to finish his sketch.

The four eventually chose this site as a good place to stop for lunch, then continued down the valley through the afternoon. This time, as they went further the mountains ahead started to get lower and lower, sinking back down into the ground until they could be called only hills and the horizon was entirely clear and flat. The escarpment along the fault trace began to get smaller as well, the height difference between the two sides becoming less and less significant as afternoon wore on into evening, aiming back toward a nearly level plane with a crack running down it, more evident for the displacement across it than for its own independent manifestation.

Although they had spent the first full day and a half following the trace in this form, having to do so again after tracking something far more obvious was proving ore difficult than any of the four could have expected. The rapidly waning light was not helping the matter, ad after some stumbling, it was decided naturally – perhaps the only agreement between Andreas and Garlock thus far – that the best course of action would be to sleep there and count on the next day's light to further illuminate the path of that terrible break in the ground.


	14. Chapter 14

The jagged mound of red sandstone was less imposing in the clear light of early morning. The bright gold of the sun's rays seemed to pull the dusty red into its spectrum of colors, fuzzying the edges and fading out the bulk until it almost appeared to be some sort of ethereal unfinished castle rather than a material ruin of full consciousness. Yet it was in this light that Aetantim the ferretmaid approached the shell that had been Redwall Abbey, and she was grateful that the environment was making the way feel easier even after creating this obstacle to begin with.

There was already an excavated tunnel aimed toward the Infirmary area, now ironically conveniently located at ground level rather than on the second floor. It had been one of the first to be cleared out, right after the path down into the food cellars. The casualties of the quake had, in all but a few cases, been at the extreme ends of the spectrum – either death or only minor scrapes and abrasions and thus, sustaining the living had taken precedence over bandaging their scrapes. But with sated hunger, the capacity to complain of pain increased, and the Infirmary route had to be cleared. Aetantim had not participated in that clearing, but she had since gone in several times to recover medications.

Her apprehension that morning came not from going in that far alone, but from knowing that she would have to go further this time. She slipped down into the tunnel like a miner descending a dark shaft, stopping in the clear cavern of the room, now empty of all its stores and patients, breathing heavily as the dust she had disturbed settled. From all her work in that room while it was still intact, the ferret could feel for the proper exit in the dark. She let out a squeak of gladness as her paws felt across the handle of the door, but tugging it open into the room proved to be difficult. Aetantim braced her footpaws against a crack in the slanted stone floor and threw her entire weight into the tugging.

The hinges groaned and a rumble emanated from the other side of the door as if the door were the only thing between the young ferret and some dreadful beast of the unknown. And that turned out not to be so far off the mark – taking its limit of strain, the infirmary door busted inward with a tumble of rocks and dust, streaming like a mudslide halfway into the no-longer-quite-so-excavated room. Had Aetantim not been a beast graced with natural flexibility and quick reflexes, she would have been added to the numbers of beasts permanently pinned within the remnants of the Abbey, but she was able to use the same crack in the floor to launch herself out of the path of the debris just in the nick of time.

Aetantim found herself in a darker and narrower space than before, with little headroom and the one exit she knew to go into Redwall rather than to the outside world now blocked. Dust swirled heavily and she shut her eyes and coughed, wishing that the heavy walls would dissipate from her expulsion of air like the dust did. She otherwise remained still for several long minutes, dreading that she might set off another slide that could impede her exit. When nothing came, she experimentally reached one forepaw up in order to start feeling her way out of the cramped nook.

The sandstone was rough against her pawpads, yet she could not have been more glad to feel the right angle edge of a cut brick and the sharp metal rim of a busted-out windowframe. Aetantim snaked her other paw around to this point and pulled herself slowly out of the corner, finding herself facing the remains of the window that had once been the Infirmary's lookout over the Great Hall. The chipped rectangle of stone seemed to be vaguely backlit despite the scattered rocks directly before it, and with new resolve Aetantim chose to slip her way through as best she could.

A ferret's naturally elongated body shape evolved early on to suit a life dealing with tunnels and crevasses, and Aetantim reaped the benefits of that heritage as she skirted the mangled chunks of masonry, aiming toward an ever-brightening but still indistinct backlight. The lack of concrete directionality even in the increasing visibility was a frustration to the ferretmaid, but she pressed on, dust accumulating in her fur and stinging at the inevitable scrapes on her paws.

The light suddenly increased dramatically as Aetantim rounded a decorated chunk of what had once been ceiling. The ferret winced at the sudden influx of light, her eyes screwing shut. After several seconds, she pried them slowly open and found herself in a much brighter space, scattered with rocks and capped with half of a ceiling and half open sky. And in the middle of the pile, a streak of bright light ran along a distinctly metal edge, sparkling from the sunbeams coming over the former east wall and aiming due west.

With no question in her mind as to what to do, Aetantim clambered with new urgency toward the bar of light, dislodging small chunks of brickwork as she went but not disturbing the whole arrangement of the disarray. When she at last arrived at the source of the light, again spluttering from the dust, she instantly recognized the impossibly blue-bright blade that was pointing the way. The Great Sword of Redwall, once a functional weapon, had for the past few centuries been kept as a symbolic display in the Abbey's Great Hall. Now, even in its shambled surroundings, it was useful again.

The blade alone was visible, piercing through a dusty but apparently-colorful cloth that obscured the obvious bump of the hilt and a more formless mass below it. Gripping the flat of the blade with cautious paws, Aetantim managed to pull it free of the cloth, the still-sharp edge parting the fibers easily but managing not to inflict even the tiniest cut along the ferretmaid's raw pawpads. Aetantim held the marvelous Sword of Martin the Warrior aloft, staring at the impossibly fresh black wrapping on the hilt and at the glistening red of the pommel stone, the spirited symbol resurgent even within the eviscerated Abbey that it no longer protected.

Fatigue suddenly wracking her limbs, Aetantim lowered the great blade and took several deep breaths. She had momentarily forgotten her initial objective and had to mentally regroup to think of where to search next. In her consideration, the ferretmaid idly rolled back the cloth and let out another squeak of alarmed discovery. The great tapestry of Redwall's medieval history had hung behind protective glass in the Great Hall along the sword for just as many centuries, and the glass had served well to prevent weathering, fraying, and fading. This protection had been naturally undone by the earthquake, and in one movement, the sword had undone part of the fabric that portrayed its own history.

The cut started at the edge of the tapestry, slicing the carefully-rendered individual stitches of grass and stones into hanging edges, then tearing onward through stylized impressions of fleeing hordebeasts and triumphant woodlanders alike, then culminating in a broad slash across the image of Redwall Abbey itself. Tears welled into Aetantim's dusty eyes as she unrolled the tapestry and took in the scope of the damage. Earthquake setting the scene or not, she could not help but feel guilt for freeing the sword as she had and therefore contributing directly to the destruction of this particular piece of Redwall.

But the impression of Martin the Warrior himself was intact. The brave liberator of Mossflower County smiled serenely out from the stitches that comprised his image, too lifelike and present to be oblivious to the great degree of devastation surrounding it, yet too assured and benevolent to dole out any form of blame. Looking at the impression of eyes too dark to be mere dyed thread, Aetantim ran a paw over Martin's image. She did not know what she was really expecting to feel, yet she jerked backwards at the detection of tangible curves of limbs under the cloth.

A mix of horror and curiosity clear enough to have been deliberately planned and stitched crept over Aetantim's face as she reached back toward the tapestry. Paws unsteady, she rolled the Warrior's image to the side and revealed the still-costumed-in-silk and impossibly serene body of Jacinth.

Suddenly inundated with that peculiar sort of strength that only comes in a circumstance of dire and inarguable importance, Aetantim lifted Jacinth's tiny body and the tapestry about it into the cradle of her arms, extending one forepaw to hold the great sword out ahead. She then clambered straight back in the direction from which she had come, practically sensing her way past all the fallen obstacles and not tripping once as she grew nearer and nearer to the outside world.

-----

Despite her overwhelming physical and mental exhaustion, Ruta could not sleep. The badger kept tossing about on the ground, though she was neither disturbed by its hardness nor was she reliving the sickening motion of the great earthquake in her dreams. She simply could not remain in the realm of slumber for long and was heavily conscious of each turn she made. In the few dreams she was able to have, she only dreamed of tossing and turning, which was just as effective as not sleeping at all.

The badger Councilchair could not identify the cause of her restlessness as it was occurring but as the night lifted into morning, thus eliminating any further opportunities for sleep by way of brightness and activity, Ruta realized that a single word was responsible, bouncing around in her subconscious and splitting her nerves without asserting itself by name until the whole community was awake around her. Leave.

It was really not so much the word itself as the concept it represented. Repeating a word over and over can quickly reduce it to a sequence of meaningless syllables, but repetition of a specific concept only magnifies its significance. No doubt the thought of packing up and leaving before another earthquake could tear their lives further apart had crossed the mind of many a creature involved in the cataclysm. Ruta had thought it herself long before the dust had even settled, but she had dismissed it even as she took in the helplessness of the structural failure of Redwall. That was the easy way out, the quick fix.

But then, twice in two days, the concept had been brought up to her by serious and powerful creatures. Rhynn would not have proposed such a thing if her aim had been conquest. The grave honesty in the silver weasel's strange green eyes had been of an intensity that no earthquake could dislodge, an intensity that stuck in the badger's mind. And the otter Admiral Streamrunner – Ruta knew him well. She had backed him in the Northern War and considered him a friend outside their realms of duty for a long time. She knew that his spirit was genuine and that his characteristic light humor never extended to joking about matters of business, politics, or war. Why should unforeseen natural disaster be any different? There was no chance of it.

Two strong and powerful creatures, both with followers to speak for their persona pull, and, perhaps more importantly, both with the ships to do the deed if it came down to that. Having the ships made it all different, changing a hypothetical course of action into an immediately possible one. Spend seasons sifting through the shards of a crumbled history, dismantling it further before it could be rebuilt in some semblance of continuity? Or just hop on a ship and go someplace fresh and different and let that shattered history lie, an artifact in itself?

The badger paced slowly around the perimeter of Redwall's ruins, just as much a motion to help her remain awake as it was one to aid deep thought. Concepts and alternatives jumped around in the exhausted space of her consciousness, with the further consideration of each one leading only to more ideas of consequences and more indecision. But within this pensiveness, Ruta's eyes were at least properly focused on the path she trod, thus preventing a messy run-in with a young female ferret carrying an impressive sword.

Aetantim had placed Jacinth's body alongside those not yet buried and was turning the corner to search for Maestro Liedswelt when she nearly gutted Ruta. She let out a yelp of surprise and jerked backwards, the tapestry sliding off her arm and the sword swinging sideways in avoidance.

Ruta gaped at Aetantim and her artifacts, thoroughly startled in the best possible way, though the wetness that pooled in the corners of her eyes may have been a more ambiguous sign of emotion. "You found those…" The normally eloquent badger was reduced to short phrases. "Where did you find those?"

"Inside," the ferret responded, pointing the tip of the blade toward Redwall. "In the middle. Pointing due west."

Ruta bent down and lifted the tapestry with the utmost care, frowning at the deep tear in the cloth, then looking back up at the gleaming blade. "West…"


	15. Chapter 15

The assessment that the trace would be easier to follow in the daylight held true, at least for a little while. In the first light hours of the morning, Andreas, Elsinore, Garlock, and Hayward continued to follow that straight disturbed line on the ground, requiring no genuine sense of direction to stay on the correct route. Yet, as in comic images portraying beasts walking off cliffs and only falling once they notice the ground beneath their footpaws has gone away, the four nearly trekked right off the line as it suddenly but gently swung to the left. Andreas noticed the lack of the line first, and Elsinore was able to point at a right-deflected dry streambed at a certain point, so they were able to resume their route with little problem.

But as the early morning wore on into hours that would be seen by all but the latest sleepers, the feature that had been their guide so far began to be more vague in its directions. The ground progressed from harder soil and rock to a softer composite, not quite a sand or powder but close to it – soft on the pawpads and smooth enough to slide in over any tracks they might make. It also, however, seemed to have this masking effect on the earth's own track. Elsinore observed that the strange groundcover consisted entirely of pulverized sediments, sandstone, and granite – an indication that tectonic forces were still at work in the area – but that did not make those processes easier to follow. The four continued for quite some time in a straight line from the last distinct evidence of the crack, but by the time the sun swung around into the afternoon hours their path had also become dissolute and aimless.

They stopped for lunch by a stream that ran straight, though this straightness related to their general direction only indicated that the stream did not cross the fault at any visible point, thus providing no hints as to the potential way the trace had turned. While Hayward, Elsinore, and Garlock pulled out their rations, Andreas again broke his usual habits on timing and pulled out his black notebook and Lontano's map. But he did not yet write; he was not concerned with forgetting that the goal of their expedition had disappeared in a soft powder. Rather, the marten regarded the larger picture he'd started to assemble over those three and a half days, considering the sequence of marked displacements for a good ling while before he even pulled put a pencil. The line that he eventually drew to connect the dots was light and tentative in his handwriting – such a contrast from the real thing until this point – but it was as straight as any planned road and lined up exactly with larger meanders in major waterways in addition to with the new rearrangements that the expedition had found.

Andreas considered this line, so far only stretching from Salamandastron south and partially east. He glanced north along the unchanged part of the map, then allowed his eyes to flicker between the line and the known and marked cities and landmarks indicated all over the face of the countryside. If the other three had been watching him instead of eating, they might have noticed his eyes linger even longer on a point on the lower right-hand corner of the map.

"Oh dear," said Andreas, now drawing attention indeed.

Hayward's ears stiffened and swiveled toward the marten. "I say…of all the beasts to ever utter an oops, I'd have hoped to not hear one coming from you, eh wot."

"Why are you worrying, Zurr Andras?" Elsinore questioned, sifting some of the soft dirt through her digging claws. "We may not be able to see it, but it has to be abaout here somewhere."

"No, no, not that," Andreas mumbled, pressing his lips tightly together as he leaned in closer over his own map, searching for errors on his part that would differentiate it from Lontano's. But there was no such luck.

"Wot kind of oops do you mean?" Hayward pressed, his persistent smile going a little crooked in concern.

Andreas pointed at the map and his new line upon it. "We've been following the break, no question, but it goes nowhere near the crevasse discussed in the Golden Plains records. See…" he pointed now at specific places that matched between his chart and Lontano's. "There's Salamandastron and Redwall and way over to the southeast is Loamhedge. Here's the Bell and Badger Rocks and the caves in the cliff. And over here's The Narrows, where some of those crevasse-dwellers went after so much of their domain collapsed, here's where the Stumps and their neighbors founded a town to get away from the shaking, and here's Big Bend, halfway between Redwall and Loamhedge, but," Andreas' claw drifted to the other side of the map, "we're way over here. Much further west and too far south too. We're much closer to the Great Inland Lake and Castle Floret than to where I thought this would lead us!" The marten sounded genuinely upset by this realization.

"There's something rotten abaout this," Elsinore stated, her brow lifting up into little fuzzy ridges. "But if they've got urthquakes daown at Loamhedge and naow we have them too, it has to be related, stand on moi tunnel."

"Oh, I'm certain it's connected," Andreas continued, shaking his head. "But I don't know if, if we've lost this track entirely. It doesn't make sense, but we've stopped seeing the deflection, and…"

From Andreas' first spoken indication of a problem, Garlock's eyes had been locked on the marten's face. Now, as the Recorder continued to express uncertainty after uncertainty, the ferret's restraint gave way and a shout ruptured forth from his throat. "And you know why we're off course? You know why we're not over there like you so insisted we should have been? It's nobeast's fault but yours, Andreas. You and your pretty mountains and forgetting your own oh-so-essential goal."

The marten's expression transformed from one of vague worried confusion to one of hard and focused irritation. "The goal was to trace the cause. The assumption was that it would lead to Loamhedge. There is no blame to assign here, only a need to rethink the experimental design."

"Well, you know what sure would have fit both that pet theory of yours and the practical application of this whole disaster? If we'd gone north. If you just wanted to track this thing, I know it goes up to Darkhill, and that matters to me more than anything else here. But you don't care about that, nor about anybeast at all. Nature this and prevent that? You'd reduce us all to science!" Garlock drew in closer to Andreas, the intensity of pent-up stress streaming out in his voice and his glare.

"That hypothesis could have only been disproved by our doing exactly what we have done and coming down here – we will still go north and we'll go east, too." Andreas' face remained even now, but his voice started to show the accumulation of strain from Garlock's accusations. "And I care about every creature who was effected by this – every single one. That's bigger than just me and it's bigger than just you. You're a selfish beast to impede the understanding of Nature in order to satisfy yourself, and you're foolish to think your own rage has so much consequence to me or to anyone else as Nature's rage does. You're being subducted here, but if you think, you'll notice that we all are. So find a way to reconcile that or you can head back up to Darkhill on your own."

"You'd have to let us know what you find when you go up there, all right, old chap?" Hayward could not resist getting in a shot of his own, and it was delivered with his usual smile deformed into a maniac smirk.

Garlock jabbed a finger toward Hayward. "Like you really have personal investment in this, you lopeared creep. Go back to your badger fort, then. You just showed us a little crack in the road and ended up pointing us the wrong way to begin with."

Hayward huffed, but Andreas' retort resonated sympathetically with the hare's words. "And the only unilateral decision here was your decision to come along to begin with," he explained to Garlock. "Which makes you alone responsible for your ending up here."

In that moment, the magnitude of the situation increased dramatically. "Stop talking like you're a perfect little saint, Andreas," Garlock snarled, the low sound coming from deep in his throat as he thrust his forepaws forward to strike the marten.

Andreas dipped down just in time, slipping away from the intended blows and responding with continued scientific levelness, "What then, Garlock? Would you have me be a martyr instead?"

Further enraged by his miss and by Andreas' quip, Garlock skidded forward, kicking up tracks in the dirt, the snarling wavering violently as he aimed to turn around for another shot. But before he had a chance, Elsinore darted in as fast as her short mole legs would carry her, placing herself between the ferret and the marten and waving her digging claws fast enough to shear the fur off of any paws that might move to attack.

"Naow, if you kill each other aout here, there is nobeast who would find you and that would be two more casualties of the urthquake-" Elsinore glared meaningfully, though more toward Garlock than toward Andreas. "I think splitting up goes against both of your ideas. We need to keep going naow."

Though fire still smoldered in his eyes, Garlock was more receptive to a point from Elsinore, as the mole had done no single thing to try his nerves on the journey so far. His springloaded muscles untensed, though he continued to cast mistrusting expressions toward the marten.

Andreas narrowed his eyes right back at Garlock, then eased off in a nod toward Elsinore. Without another word, he picked up his map and notebook and strode purposefully to the right, the direction in which they had been traveling. Hayward leapt along to parallel the marten's path. But Garlock, with a last flash of his teeth, turned quite deliberately to the left and started off. It was Elsinore again, standing still, though facing right and beckoning left, who drew the group back together. "Naow, if one of us is going back to Redwall, then we should, but like Zurr Andras said, if we go back naow, it should be a different way than the one we took to get here, in case we foind more things,"

"I'm not interested in finding…" Garlock began in the course half-whisper of someone who knows his misplaced anger could bring him great harm.

"Back to Redwall?" came an unfamiliar voice. The four travelers cut their argument short at the sound, the first creature they had encountered other than themselves since they had left Mossflower. Seconds after these words were spoken, two light-furred squirrels appeared in the travelers' path, so suddenly as to give no indication of the direction from which they came.

The second squirrel spoke now, "We're sorry to interrupt you, but we heard you arguing even louder than we usually do ourselves. Yours are the first new voices we've heard in over a week!"

"And you said Redwall!" the first squirrel reiterated, voice high with excitement. "That means it's still there and we can go up there! I've never been more glad to be wrong!"

The second squirrel pointed a thumb toward the first. "Heh, poor Fialko here's convinced that just because we got hit by an earthquake, everyone did. But he says that every time we have one, and it's never gone further than a couple of towns over."

"Aw, you never know, Hosgri," Fialko retorted. "You never know. It could just be warming up for a really big one some day."

"Every time?" Andreas cut in, undeniably intrigued. Garlock eyed him murderously.

Hayward cut in front of the squirrels, tipping his ears in respect and regret. "My good squirrels, it befalls me to inform you that your fears are entirely too assured and warranted. Redwall has been full-out demolished by the earthquake."

Both squirrels cut their chatter and blinked in disbelief at the hare. Yet as quickly as the solemnity had set in, Fialko broke it by jabbing both of his forepaws toward Hosgri. "I told you! I told you the big one was no joking matter!"

"But Zurr Falko…you're joking around now." Elsinore's observation was a gentle one, even as she held her ground between Garlock and Andreas.

Hosgri shook his head several times. "I'd assumed that if you got down here alive and well, you must have pulled through all right up there."

"Well, we pulled through. We're not great, though, but at least we haven't bally well fallen off into the ocean or anything, eh wot." Hayward was apparently incapable of maintaining seriousness for long, as if he had worn out his quota on the run from Salamanadastron to Redwall immediately following the quake.

"Why are you down here, then?" Hosgri wondered.

"We came to chart the damage in hopes of identifying its causes," Andreas explained, looking more at Garlock than at the squirrels. "The trail of destruction brought us right down here."

Fialko pointed at the marten. "But you're going back to Redwall anyway?

"Eventually, we'll…"

"We are going back to Redwall," Garlock cut in, voice strong and decisive enough to be like a stone road marker hammered into the middle of the little circle of beasts.

"Good!" Fialko clasped his paws together. "We'll come with you and tell you all we know."

Hayward hemmed and hawed and considered the flour sack of rations, lighter than it had been at the outset of the expedition. "Ahem…I don't think we bally well have the rations to take on new recruits, wot wot."

Hosgri waved a paw at the hare as if to shoo his concerns. "Oh, we have those. We know how to keep them safe even through the regular quakes. And," the squirrel's voice became more inviting, "if you're worried about speed, we can even go by train."

"Train?" Andreas had previously been exhibiting a great deal of intrigue at the wealth of evidence and information that he was certain the squirrels could provide him about seismic history and protection, but his expression flooded with discomfort at the last word. "Along our path thus far, we have come across a great deal of split roads and railways and other deformations in the ground. If think it would be unlikely that the track from here to Redwall would be undisturbed and safe."

"We've never had problems with it before." Hosgri shrugged.

"But you had also never been in a tremor that has had such a widespread range of effects before?" Andreas' sentence sounded somewhere between a statement and a question.

Garlock pointed past Elsinore, in the general direction of the mapbooks in Andreas' paws. "We never crossed that line in the dirt," he sneered, no matter how many other lines he felt had been crossed in the course of the journey. "We're on the same side of it as Redwall is, your tracks should be fine – unlike the ones up to Darkhill, that we would have needed to walk to get to all along."

Andreas shuddered slightly and consulted the maps, realizing the correctness of what the ferret had said before the comment had turned inflammatory.

"We're taking the train back to Redwall," Garlock insisted. "And today."

The marten gritted his teeth, the conceded, "If the plane of motion has been shown to not meet up with the cracks at Loamhedge…it perhaps is more imperative to report that to the council, then to continue tracing the unknown parts of the new crack up north…going to Loamhedge to make conclusions will perhaps work best after we have charted the whole of this. So…we can take the train back to Redwall."

With this decision, Elsinore finally found it safe to remove herself from the space between Andreas and the now-gloating Garlock. Hosgri and Fialko beckoned for the four travelers to follow them.

In a scant twenty minutes of walking, the group came upon a town that, despite the name of Parkfield printed on the sign at the train station, was more of a wooded glen on a stream than either a park or a field. The structures within were not wholly untouched, but unlike every other town that the four Mossflowerites had passed, the most severe form of damage here was a series of collapsed chimneys – a fate that many from the area around Redwall would have considered incredibly lucky. Another major thing that differentiated Parkfield from the other towns was that its population, though small, was still present and alive. Mostly squirrels, with the occasional mole, mouse, or hedgehog among them, they came out into the streets to observe the newcomers' arrivals.

"You get that train to Redwall, we can help you with anything you need. As you can see, we've done alright ourselves." Hosgri gestured between the town and the train in its station.

Andreas nodded slowly, then did a doubletake. "Wait. If we get the train to Redwall?"

Fialko clasped his paws together, almost begging. "Our usual conductor went to Redwall for Nameday, then there was the quake, and then he didn't come back. That's why I thought this one was maybe the big one." He shot a glance at Hosgri. "But since you creatures at Redwall started this whole rail system and since all the tracks lead to the city there, I figure one of you knows how they work, right?"

"Oi certainly don't," Elsinore told the squirrels. "Oi dig the trackbeds, that's it. And that recollection of duty now only brought the mole a sense of severe unpleasantness.

Garlock shook his head with a jerky motion. "You think the political-types actually know how the things they propose work?"

"I hardly ever even ride in them, let alone drive, eh wot." Hayward did, however, seem excited about the prospect of a ride.

All eyes fell on Andreas, and the marten shuffled his feet and bit his lower lip. "I've looked over the diagrams. I know how they work, on principle, but I've never done it. And I don't like them. You miss so much detail on a train."

"We've seen the scenery." The danger reemerged in Garlock's voice. "Don't go back on your word."

Hosgri worded things more gently. "You're what we've got. We can't get up there and help you if we can't get up there at all."

Andreas glanced toward the gleaming black locomotive engine in the Parkfield station. Stationary and turned off, it seemed more like an odd building with wheels than the frightening creature it became when screaming along the tracks and belching smoke. He considered the blue-and-black-on-white charts that laid out the working parts and controls in laboratory-sterile order, charts that were surely now buried under tons of debris.

The marten inhaled deeply, then let all the air out in a short sharp burst. "I can try."


	16. Chapter 16

The tapestry of Redwall lay unrolled on a piece of the Abbey itself -- large, smooth-topped, and situated in a place that allowed it to serve as a crude and unfortunate table. The rock easily accommodated the entire cloth, with room left behind for the members of the informal Council to rest their paws and consider. This assembly of creatures could only be considered an informal one in that all of them were leaders of _something_, but they had not all worked together as a legislative body before the quake. The official members of the government were not required to be at Nameday, as the yearly sessions were in autumn rather than in spring, and the ever-growing casualty list included many beasts of office within Mossflower City and Redwall, with some representatives form other parts of the country as of yet unaccounted for.

The makeshift council consisted of the otter Admiral Streamrunner, the badger General Winfield of Salamandastron and his hare lieutenant Walden, the fox Rakarde, Foremole Skoilkill, Rhynn of the Northridge Horde, and several leaderly-types of various species from around the country. The mouse Wesley took it upon himself to record the discussions and deliberations of the assembly. And, naturally, the badger Ruta served as the Council's chairbeast. Even Ruta herself did not feel like the most credible of creatures, however, as she cited the damaged tapestry and the placement of the great sword (now held protectively in one of her massive forepaws) as significant with relation to the issue of whether to remain in Mossflower or rebuild elsewhere.

All of the Mossflowerites understood the significance of these artifacts, so the long gash in the tapestry was a sorry thing to behold in each of their minds. But the prophetic significance to which Ruta hinted in her testimony only clashed with them. Yes, the medieval records contained all sorts of accounts of spirit mice running through pathways of dream, and creatures suddenly producing extensively cryptic rhymes that they could not recall devising. Yes, some of the very rhymes had been retained for posterity. But no such thing had occurred in recent memory, nor in the recorded memory of several generations beforehand. The whole principle of precognition and guardian spirits seemed out of place to their increasingly analytical modernized minds. No matter what their ancestors had written and experienced, the temporal gap between the last such occurrence and the present day made it easy to write such things off as medieval naivete and attempts to explain peculiar natural things in a supernatural manner. The modern creature must know better, and thus no more Martin premonitions.

If Ruta had not been venerable and trustworthy in so many other cases, her mention of Jacinth's hysterical fit on the night before the earthquake would have certainly been scoffed at. Yet the badger had never fallen short on things in the past, so the makeshift Council heard her out as she explained the correlation between mad outbursts that mentioned swords and shaking, the quake itself, the specific orientation of damage on the tapestry, and the reported alignment of sword and cloth relative to the mouse singer's dead body. This explanation even warranted a period of silence for consideration after it was given.

Proving that he had the attention for detail required of a Recorder, Wesley timidly spoke up to counter Ruta's offering. He noted that all the known accounts of Martin-induced precognition occurred as bursts of eerie calm rather than disruptive insanity, and that the important information had always been divulged in a dream or in the form of a verse. Jacinth had been anything but calm, and there was no poetic element in her outburst other than the straight repetition of phrases. Furthermore, both sword and tapestry were symbols of the same power and legacy that was Martin the Warrior, so it would make no symbolic sense whatsoever for one to bring destruction upon the other. And the placement of all the key factors was no more than chance, Wesley proposed, just as the timing and location of the earthquake had also been chance.

It is fortunate that the council's discussion had moved away from the specific issue of Jacinth to the more generally-termed matter of premonition versus insanity when Maestro Liedswelt approached the makeshift table from behind. The marten's bearing was timid, forepaws pressed into each other and eyes tightly squinted, so different from his characteristic proud bearing. At some distance behind him stood the survivors from the Grand Opera, singers and orchestral musicians alike, dressed in everything from nightclothes to salvaged costumes, only some holding the sheet music and instruments with which they came to Redwall.

Liedswelt aimed first for Winfield, then caught on to his own myopia and redirected at Ruta. "We are leaving now," he told her, accented voice subdued, maybe even ashamed. "Here was never our place and I feel we have done all we can on the scene itself. We do not wish to burden you, and we have other places that await. But I will do all in my power, whatever the musical world holds within the political, to have any further aid sent to you once we have returned home. This was the ill will of Nature, and as Art is Nature's pinnacle, the good will of Art is what I can give."

Ruta considered the squinting conductor and his bedraggled company. "I am sorry to see you go," she said at length. "But as you will always carry these events with you, you _will_ always have a place with us. Best of luck on your journey."

Liedswelt stood still, not even turning to leave. His squint relaxed, eyes focusing on something that did not require spatial distance vision. The marten's temporal distance vision was intact despite his lack of spectacles. He spoke again, his voice softer but also more focused. "I wrote a piece once, when I was younger -- one of my first solidly complete works. Full orchestra with choir and solo voices. I meant it as a depiction of what I thought would happen to those poor creatures lost in some sort of cataclysm -- or in any frame of life, really. It is very programmatic -- sinister marches, herald bugle calls, the last sounds of nature before mortality...and there was an earthquake in it. That's what I seriously meant it to be. But it was three measures, only three, just a crescendoed drumroll, soft to loud..."

The marten shook his head, smiling weakly. "I did that wrong, I see I won't change it, since it was so self-integrated, but I'd do it differently now that I _know_. I mean, I have no idea how such a thing _could_ be translated to musical sound, but not as I did it in that piece. And yet...after the earthquake in my piece, the fallen wake up from the crevasses and rubble -- they are aimless at first, but then they are lifted beyond that mortality to newer and greater places. My earthquake is all wrong, but I can only hope that resurrection holds out as accurate."

Liedswelt nodded and looked up, blurred eyes meeting Ruta's. In that gaze, there was a good long silence; it was only when Ruta opened her mouth to breathe heavier rather than to speak that Liedswelt ventured to add, "That's the part with the choir alone. I'd like for us to sing it to you."

There was no protest, and thus Liedswelt beckoned to his musicians -- the cast of the opera, even Enruso and Crysantema, arranged in an equally-voiced choir, with the ferretmaid Aetantim supplying the missing mezzo-soprano voice. The maestro shut his eyes as he gave the upbeat, not requiring spectacles or score in this case. The score came, pure and homophonic: "Arise, yes, you will arise, my dust, after a short rest! What was created must perish! What has perished must rise again! Tremble no more! Prepare yourself to live!"

The pure sound hung in the spring air even after the maestro's cutoff. For once, Liedswelt did not object to the sound not following his every paw motion. The whole ensemble themselves stood silent as their earlier sound waves projected outward. It was only when the last vibrations trickled away that they moved wordlessly away from their choral rows and back into procession. Aetantim passed her music back to Liedswelt, expression somewhere between a grateful smile and the sort of contemplation that dare not allow for that smile, then slipped back off toward the infirmary. Liedswelt nodded solemnly to Ruta and the Council before joining the rest of the group, giving them the cue to move on.

The beasts of the Grand Opera trailed away from the remains of Redwall like in a scene from one of the music dramas the produced -- bedraggled, silent, and carrying the body of Jacinth -- laid out on a salvaged door and draped in a curtain -- like it was that of an epic hero.

The Council matched this degree of silence until the column of musicians fully disappeared into the green of Mossflower. Ruta pressed her paws together and looked among them Councilbeasts, at last clearing her throat gently and proposing, "Perhaps we have had no premonitions in several hundred years because we simply have not needed them."

-----

The train steamed through the Mossflower night, gleaming black-painted metal slipping through natural darkness, heavy column of smoke diffusing out of visibility between the trees and the sky. The whistle mutedly called through the scene, though more because Hayward wanted to operate the whistle than to clear any beasts away from the isolated tracks. The travelers had already well established how abandoned or dead the settlements along their way had been.

Andreas, Hayward, Garlock, and Elsinore had been received with interest and excitement in Parkfield; even as they declared their urgency in terms of returning to Redwall, the citizens insisted upon feeding them heartily before loading further rations and passengers onto the train. Thus, between that and the leisurely pace of preparation that could only be expected by a town that is barely shaken into action by actual physical shaking, darkness had already almost overtaken the countryside by the time the train pulled out of the station.

With Hosgri and Fialko keeping the engine fed with coals, Andreas found that, while running a train was uncomfortable temperaturewise, it did in fact work precisely how the schematic diagrams and manuals for conductors said it would. Confidence thus bolstered, the marten was able to convince himself that he had nothing to fear if he was controlling the power of that machine, and that he wouldn't be able to see the scenery at night anyway. He did, however, retain enough nervous energy that, along with the blistering heat of the coal fire and Hayward's glee at the sound of the whistle, he was able to keep himself awake and driving as night streamed on toward morning.

Andreas' study of routes and timetables also told him that all tracks, when taken straight, headed to Redwall and the city behind it, and that switches and turnoffs would only lead the expedition astray. He was glad for this, too, as he hadn't the slightest idea how to make a switch or a turn on a train. He only knew that he could keep the thing going forward and upright on its one designated track.

As night began to brighten into predawn, Andreas even lost his ability to do that. The track, thus far unaffected by broken ground, had been bisected by a ridged ground crack running perpendicular to the fault. The ground slanted suddenly upward, the track split and twisted to either side of the new landform. Train wheels can handle gradual slopes, but sudden kicks upward are never favorable for rail routes. The train lurched violently as it hit the rift, iron screaming, coals leaping out of the furnace and narrowly missing the occupants of the cabin. Another form of narrowness was a saving grace here -- the railroad cut cleared through the dim forest was not particularly wide, practically claustrophobia-inducing. Therefore, when the train, which had been moving at a slower rate than a trained engineer would have driven it, creaked sideways and rocked to the side into the forest. The smaller saplings in its way topple with it, but the more venerable old trees supported the locomotive at an angle more upright than capsized.

Creatures slid their way toward the doors of the train and piled out into the dim predawn, fully awake and jarred from the collision. And the coals from the engine's fire, very much live themselves, poured out onto the forest floor, glowing and smoking, already causing grasses and quake-fallen foliage to smolder threateningly. Elsinore, one of the first off the train, seemed to be one of the the few to notice this in the genera panic of regrouping on the other side of the fallen vehicle. The mole dropped to all fours, digging all of her paws into the same sort of soft soil that had nearly overcome her during the quake, tearing it upward onto the threat of flames and not ceasing until the coals could not be seen gleaming under the pile of dirt. Breathing heavily, she trundled around to the other side of the train.

Hosgri and Fialko were frantically chattering orders at the citizens of Parkfield who had chosen to come along; even though this was not a terribly large number, the two squirrels were still only achieving minimal organization for the time being. Andreas and Hayward had given up on getting any information out of the squirrels and were conversing between themselves, gesticulating down the track and into the darkness of the forest. Garlock skulked, leaning against the side of the capsized locomotive. Elsinore approached the marten and the hare, speaking nothing of her heroism. She only piped up when it was apparent that Andreas and Hayward were attempting to determine their location and the next step from there.

"Zurrs," Elsinore inserted. Andreas and Hayward stopped, looking at the mole in worried expectation. "Oi know the feel of this soil Oi was on the crew that dug this part of the loine. We're not so far, perhaps ten moiles."

Before Andreas could get in a word on Elsinore's revelation, a figure shot past him, down the track at full speed. Garlock did not utter any words either as he took off, grim determination set in his jaw, his gait pounding and frantic, his action decisive in itself. A small group of the Parkfield squirrels, still disorganized, took this as a sign to follow and scooted afterward. There were not enough of them to be considered a stampede, but their number was still enough to be a decisive factor. Elsinore, Hayward, and Andreas took off after the rest of the group and away from the stricken train. It was easier to run fast toward Redwall with the ground unwavering under their footpaws.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

The Council of Mossflower anticipated another long day before that day had even properly begun. Some of the members had not been able to fall asleep easily during the previous night, too occupied with what had been said and sung during the day. Some others awoke earlier than usual, mentally preparing their takes on all that testimony even while they desired more sleep. Others yet tossed and turned the entire night, not quite asleep nor awake, too unsorted to properly consider _anything. _And Wesley, the new Recorder for the Council's proceedings, was up for most of the night with a pen, a record book, and a lantern. The mouse had not yet developed the speed and conciseness that Andreas had put to his job, and his efficiency was only further interrupted by his repeated turning back to gawk at the earthquake's signature in ink on the previous spread of pages.

Mutual lack of sleep precipitated the silence that hung over the Council once they assembled. The sword and tapestry had been put away; their makeshift table was exposed as bare cold stone, just as the issue of staying versus going was increasingly being stripped down to more a matter of emotions and personal motives than something cloaked in layers of scientific basis. The thought had crossed the minds of several of them that it really should work the other way around -- facts as cold and hard, emotions as soft, flexible, and concealing. The surge of feelings that caused and were caused by the Grand Opera's departure, however, were indication enough of things being otherwise.

The Council's discussion picked up on these thoughts, although it sounded more like a musical analysis than a key political decision. "If we must die so that we may live," Ruta began, "_where_ do we live after we have died?"

Winfield, the General of Salamandastron, had not been one of the more verbal members in the proceeding days' discussions, but the portly old badger spoke clearly now, his voice a distinguished and insistent baritone. "Our ashes are here, and they are hat regenerates. The remains of every Badger Lord since Salamandastron became a stronghold are housed there, and they continue to give it strength."

Rhynn of the Northridge Horde cut back to the male badger. "Life is transient. If nobeast sets out to change things, they are changed by forces beyond sentience. We should take that hint and move on to better places and ideas."

The fox Rakarde seemed, through the course of all the Council proceedings thus far, as if he had appointed himself to contradict or amend each statement that the silver weasel uttered. "Redwall came into being on top of the remains of Kotir and thrived for centuries. If we leave it, who knows what evil could be reinstated there." He looked purposefully at Rhynn, further punctuation to his sentence.

There was a brief pause. The otter Streamrunner drummed his paws against the stone slab, then chimed in. "Who's t' say we ned the final decision right now? Shouldn't we wait t' at least hear back from that expedition, an' shouldn't we at least investigate this Land Across The Water place before we go sendin' our entire populace t' live there?"

It would have been as if everything had been perfectly rehearsed if the group of creatures from the train had come over the crest of the path at just that moment. It would have been out of the realm of coincidence if they had turned up several hours later. But as it was, Garlock came stumbling in from the direction opposite to the one he'd come from after the quake roughly five minutes after Streamrunner's comment, making the whole thing feel like a very badly missed cue. He was followed most immediately by a cluster of the Parkfield squirrels, though they fell back in shock and disbelief at the state of Redwall, allowing Andreas, Hayward, and Elsinore to push through their ranks and catch up to Garlock as he approached the Council.

While being winded and terrified after the quake itself had left Garlock stammering and unable to eloquently express his woes, being winded and frustrated kept the ferret from making any verbal sense at all. He leaned in toward Ruta, syllables barking out of his throat indiscriminately. "Can't ... stay ... he wants to ... not ... we can't ... too many ... listen ..."

Ruta waved a paw stiffly at Garlock, instructing, "Breathe." The ferret, scowling intently, did seem to realize that his speech could hardy be considered as such, and he cut off, gulping viciously at the air instead. THe badger now inclined her head toward Andreas. "We did not expect to see you so soon. What brings you back here so urgently?"

After such a run from the train to the ruins of the abbey, Andreas did not have access to his full breath capacity either, but his steadier pattern of inhalation and exhalation allowed him to make better use of what air he had. "I did not expect to be back so soon either," he admitted. "I knew we would have to double back through here to complete the expedition, but I presumed a different timetable. Perhaps for the better." The marten did not sound entirely convinced of his own last sentence.

"And what have you found, then, to have changed that plan?" Ruta queried.

Even in the sudden stress of the train derailment, Andreas had maintained an instinct for scholarly preservation in addition to the instinct for his own personal survival. Thus, he had recalled to grab the bag containing the two historical recordbooks as well as his own black notebook before fleeing the engine car. He pulled out the black notebook now and opened it to his own map -- the new line standing out clearly over his replication of Lontano's lay of the land. He placed this spread of pages on the makeshift stone table before Ruta, then began to speak, indicating relevant locations with one claw as he went along.

"For the past several days, we have been following a clear and discernible break in the ground. It is unmistakably linear, and always characterized by freshly-broken dirt. In some places, that is the only sign, clear though it is, but there are also areas where the line is more of an escarpment or more of an indentation. We followed it through narrow valleys, between strange mountains, past exposed twisted strata and over pulverized rock.

"In following this line, we crossed many things -- artificial and natural -- that are bisected by it. In each case, be it road, rails, or river, the line appears to have abruptly cut the thing off, with its continuation to be found some distance to the right along the same line. It is like they were sliced, picked up, and moved.

"_Something_ must have caused the land on either side of that line to move relative to itself, though I could not even begin to tell you why or how. I'm just _certain_ that we have found the spot where this came from; the breaking of the land right there caused the quakes.

"We followed it as far south as we could still see it. The point of its disappearance, curiously, is nowhere near the ruins of Loamhedge. I think they must be related somehow, but the disturbed earth did not point there, and the freshet evidence is the most important. We have to double back past Redwall because, based on the refugees that have found their way here, this line must extend much further north from here as well. We will need to continue north to figure out precisely where it lies in order to show the whole picture, really -- and the whole picture is important. Since this has happened once, we need to know how to handle a repeat of this season's events."

Andreas waved a paw at Hosgri and Fialko, who stepped slightly forward at this cue. The marten continued. "These squirrels are from a place that gets many quakes. They each felt several in their lifetimes so far, and their town, which we visited, had only minimal damage. There is clearly something to be learned from how they manage these disasters, and they have agreed to help us get started on managing our own similar problems. If we want our rebuilt cities to not need another rebuilding in the future, I think their advice should be absolutely indispensable and invalua--"

"Andreas!" Hayward interjected loudly.

At the call of his name, the marten looked away from Ruta and toward Hayward, just in time to see the hare throw a chunk of red sandstone directly at him -- and to duck down just before it could hit.

"Aaaaaooough!"

The low scream was just as much surprise as pain, and Andreas bolted back upright to see who had taken the hit instead. Garlock was already trying to push himself off the ground with one of his forepaws; the other one clutched his forehead, a slight tinge of blood visible on the fur below.

"What?" Andreas questioned, eyes narrowing warily.

Hayward stepped forward. His eyes were also narrowed, but in contempt for the ferret on the ground rather than in any form of sympathy. "He was coming at you while you were speaking -- he had a bally shard of glass in his paw, and there was no getting you out of his way any other way, eh wot."

Andreas crouched down by Garlock, his repeated question lower in his voice. "_What?"_

Garlock hissed at Andreas through his teeth, removing the paw from his forehead and wiping a streak of blood in the alread-red dust of the ground. "You're just setting it up for all of these creatures to die again and again. You couldn't care less."

"Every creature can only die once," Andreas corrected "These victims already have. My aim is to prevent it from happening to other creatures in later centuries. That can only come from carefully-gathered knowledge and understanding."

The trickle of blood from the superficial cut on Garlock's forehead increased the sinister nature of his snarl. "I've been giving you all the knowledge you need the whole time. It's simple. You _leave_. Nobeast else dies from it."

Andreas' ears pressed back. "And _you've_ been trying to _kill_ me -- if _you're_ the one really concerned with others over yourself, how do you rationalize that?"

Garlock spat, hoisting himself into a more upright seated position. "You say it's about understanding. You don't understand _anything_, and that puts you in the way. Your wife didn't die in there. It's not even your battle."

"This is much bigger than any _one_ creature and his affairs," Andreas reiterated a point he'd made before on the journey itself. "Do you think your wife would want you to ignore your neighbors, to run and leave her and all of them alone, to not even _try_ to understand why they died?"

Throughout Andreas' last speech, a low growl was welling up in Garlock's throat. When the marten finished speaking, the ferret's rumbling pushed itself into full audibility. Garlock also pushed himself back into a full standing position in one colossal burst, managing to pick up his long shard of broken stained glass as he did so.

Suddenly faced with the threat of unnatural death, Andreas skidded backwards as fast as he could. Garlock grinned wickedly and lunged forward after him. And the earth leapt up to meet them both.

It would not be discovered until much later that, while the number of aftershocks does decrease based on time since the mainshock, the magnitudes of those aftershocks are not quite as easily covered with a formula. Those who were staying still at the time felt the strongest shaking since the day after the first massive tremor. However, Andreas, already moving backwards, was tripped up by the aftershock's onset and tumbled back further, landing hard on his rear and elbows. And Garlock, in the process of lunging forward, also fell in the direction of his previous motion. He did not fall flat, though; his descent was broken by a chunk of red sandstone on the path, driving his jaw toward the back of his skull, and by the shard of glass in his paw, pinned not under but within his abdomen.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

The aftershock lasted only three seconds and did not stir up much dust. The silence that hung over the returned expedition members and the Council of Mossflower compensated for that -- it was heavier than the sheet of dust that the big earthquake had thrown in to the air scarcely over a week earlier. But for all its impenetrability, the silence was far clearer than the dust had been. Rather than squinting through scattered light, all eyes turned to and locked on the patch of ground containing Andreas and Garlock.

Elsinore and Hayward pushed into the clearing and offered their paws to Andreas. The marten's motions were stiff and labored, but he was able to rise to his footpaws with their help and was the first of the trio to approach Garlock's fallen form. While word was still heading off to bring infirmary staff to the scene, Andreas crouched back down and placed a light forepaw on Garlock's neck. Warmth still rose up through the ferret's fur, but the marten could detect no pulsation of the muscles or veins beneath. He lingered in this position for a good two minutes, and with no sign of revival, at last stood and solemnly brushed the dirt off of himself.

"Perhaps we should turn him over," Elsinore suggested. "Just because he didn't respect the urth doesn't mean we should leave him face to the graound."

Andreas nodded dully and he and Hayward approached Garlock's body yet again, moving along with Elsinore to roll it onto its back. Rose red dust clung to the deep red patch on Garlock's short, a fragment of red glass protruding roughly an inch from the center of the mark. More terrible, though, was the ferret's face. Blood trickled and coagulated at the corners of his shattered jaw, compacted, shoved in, and twisted horribly to the left of its natural position in life -- in many ways more terrifying of a displacement than anything on the ground had been.

As he regarded Garlock's body, Andreas felt a shaking in his knees and a churning in his gut that had nothing to do with seismic activity. The dead ferret's twisted visage seemed to smirk victoriously at him, bloody and terrible. Andreas lurched to the side and vomited into a pile of rubble.

To the side of the Council group, Hosgri turned to Fialko and remarked, "Creatures aren't supposed to be killed by these things."

Fialko shook his head and amended Hosgri's statement with, "At least not like that."

The living wall around the body of Garlock parted as Aetantim and Charity from the infirmary at last reached the scene. Elsinore interrupted them. "He's dead. Perhaps you should help Zurr Andras naow."

The mouse and the ferretmaid nodded. Andreas had finished spilling the contents of his stomach, and the two infirmary workers helped him off to the side of the wreckage to sit, administering fluids and herbs from their bags.

In all the chaos and silence in one, Rhynn of the Northridge Horde was the first member of the Council to speak. The silver weasel stood and waved one paw toward Garlock's body and the other toward some of her hordebeasts in the background, who had presumably stepped up at the prospect of a good fight. "Take him back to Darkhill," Rhynn instructed. "If he had to die, it should have been there in the first place, along with the townsfolk that he failed to help. Prepare to do that as soon as you can."

As Rhynn spoke, a peculiar and indecipherable expression came to dominate Councilchair Ruta's features. Once the weasel's speach had concluded, the badger rose stiffly and abruptly. "Don't go anywhere yet," she countermanded. "Decisions have to be made here."

Yet the big badger did not hold to her own instruction. She lumbered away from the makeshift table, the Council, the crowd gathered around the scene, and around what was once one of the corners of Redwall Abbey. Ruta stared hard at the grain of the demolished masonry, piled and scattered, more natural by laws of entropy but less _right_ by all patterns of familiarity. She skirted the shambles that used to be a wall, traversed the tangle of fallen greenery that had been the orchard, passed an apparently bottomless rend in the earth that had bisected and drained the former pond. Grayed and weathered stones carved with eroded letters were distinguishable in the redder debris -- old headstones, the long dead buried once more. And she did not need to go look at the neatly turned ground that had been disturbed by deliberate paws to recall its appearance and to dredge up her last recollections of the bodies within as living souls.

Ruta reached the excavated opening which led down into the infirmary. Feeling a deep longing and compulsion to enter her beloved Redwall once final time, the badger squeezed into the gap. The task was not so easy for her as it had been for Aetantim, Charity, or any of the other infirmary workers, but she pressed forward until she was in the small chamber. There was no light and no order. The air was stagnant and dusty. The whole space resounded only with silence. Not a single sense of familiarity caught in Ruta's mind. Not a single element remained to assure her that this was still, or had ever been, Redwall Abbey.

The badger laboriously extracted herself from the little room, gulping at the fresh air outdoors even though her reemergence into the open meant _seeing_ the destruction again. She shook the dust and chips of stone from her fur, the continued her loop around the ruins, faster than before.

True to orders, nobeast had shifted positions in the span of time that Ruta had been gone. Garlock's body had been pulled to the side and Andreas was standing again, flanked by Hayward and Elsinore, but the Council and all assembled remained obediently expectant. Ruta slipped back behind the makeshift table and again spoke. "In our government, we have two leaders, internal and external. If one dies, the other is to play both roles until an election can be conducted to replace the fallen. The Abbot of Mossflower Country died in the earthquake, and we have been in no condition to hold elections. That places me in charge. That gives me the final word."

The members of the Council began to shift in their seats, but none of them could rightly contradict Ruta. They knew the laws just as well. The badger continued. "And we lost _so _ much more than just our Abbot. So many lives, so many places. It's all dust. For days, we've deliberated on what to make of that dust, and now it is time to say for certain. This is _not_ Mossflower anymore. People, places, history, social structures -- they're all gone and changed. Much of that cannot be rebuilt, and what can will not, shill not be done the same way as before. And now we have physical proof of a single line along which the earth tears, and we have proof that creatures will kill and die over that issue..."

Ruta rubbed her forehead with her forepaws. "That last bit is the _most_ dangerous thing to me. That is what makes our path as clear as that line in the earth. There is no other option to me anymore. We will leave this place. Those who choose to stay here and make what they will of it are welcome to, with my blessing, but that will be your own affair to manage. We, as a unified country, are leaving this place. The Land Across the Water can accommodate our rebirth without the scepter of another downfall hanging over us. Go back to your towns and gather what you can salvage. We have the ships to manage it. Go as swiftly as you can. The sooner that happens, the sooner this is behind us, and the sooner we will live."

The crowd began to bustle and move, discussion arising alongside motion. But it all fell on Andreas as if he had suddenly gone deaf. Ruta's words alone rang through his head, burning away at his mind and sending his heart driving down to his footpaws. Confusion, sadness, and anger all at once tore at the marten from the inside out. Here was the final rejection of Nature, the refusal to understand or adapt to what had always been there before any civilization had evolved. Here was going faster, bypassing details so quickly as to not need to clean them up, let alone comprehend them, rushing from place to place without any care for the route in between. Here was motion without going _forward_, yet also leaping so far ahead that the wide open opportunity to step back, process, make sense, and progress more steadily wasn't so much being ignored deliberately as not being noticed to begin with. Andreas ached as he considered how this did did not also bother anybeast else.

Swallowing intently, Andreas approached Ruta and asserted, "I think you're wrong. I think there's too much here to ever be abandoned, and I think it's rebuildable in a way that can withstand anything. We've found the creatures who can already do that. We _can_ live with Nature as we have in the past. We can understand it, and it will never dominate us like that again. I think you are wrong."

Ruta rested a forepaw on one of Andreas' heaving shoulders. "You have been the one stronghold that couldn't be toppled in all of this, Andreas. I trust your judgement and am certain that you could be right, but that still cannot be how it goes. We have lost too much, and what we have lost, not what remains, has to determine what we will gain from this."

Andreas shook his head firmly. "I intend to stay. I intend to trace and map this thing to both ends, to find out how it ties in to Loamhedge, to figure out how it works. I, at least, will take on that responsibility."

"I would expect no less of you," Ruta told Andreas with a small smile. "It will not be a wasted effort. I shall expect to hear it, whether you cross the water to tell us or whether we find our own way back here some day." The badger remove her paw from the marten's shoulder and strode off to begin managing the newly certain activities for which she had set the course.

Brother Andreas stood by the collapsed wall of Redwall Abbey, leaning heavily against stone, glass, and woodwork that could no longer be pinpointed as having belonged to any one part of the building, staring distantly in the direction where he knew his decisively straight fault line lay. Gentle spring breezes pulled the dust out of his fur and brushed his nostrils with the breath of fresh blossoms. That was like any spring day, warm and bright, dismissive of the very possibility of a natural disaster. But Andreas now knew with more confirmation and certainty than ever that neither this form of Nature nor the natures of sentient creatures could be taken for granted.

9 January 2007


	19. Author's Notes

So! All of _The Wicked Ground_ is written and posted! This means, true to Mitya-story form, that there must come a thread explaining all the names and references, because by now you should all be able to tell that I tend to do most things on purpose with stories like this...and I think I tend to get more meticulous with that doing thing on purpose the more stories I write!

So, without further ado, the explanations!

**Character and Place Names**

As _The Wicked Ground_ is a rewriting and elaboration upon part of my first ever Redwall fanfic, _Rhynnsylvania_, some characters carry over. I was not so meticulous about plot detail in the original story (major earthquake in one paragraph, what?) and I likewise did not tend to choose names that meant stuff at this point in time. Thus, Rhynn, Rakarde, Ruta, Walden, Kinth, Streamrunner, Leika, and Charity are all carryover characters with essentially meaningless names. Skoilkull, Winfield, Wesley, Merritt, and Aetantim also carry over, though the significance in their names will be better explained after I've written more of this trilogy.

But as for the names new and relevant to this particular story...

**Andreas** - The San Andreas Fault is very possibly the most famous named fault in the entire world. It's the boundary between the Pacific and North American tectonic plates and runs through roughly 750 miles of California terrain, from the Salton Sea in the south to Cape Mendocino in the north. It's known as a right-lateral strike-slip/transform fault, meaning that the two plates grind past each other mostly horizontally, and that all landforms/features that cross the fault appear to be deflected to the right, no matter which side of the fault the observer is on. The San Andreas has potential for very very large earthquakes -- cases in point being the magnitude 7.8 San Francisco quake on 18 April 1906 that completely demolished the city, or the suspected magnitude 8 Fort Tejon quake on 9 January 1857. Those said, the San Andreas isn't terribly active between those major breaks. If everything was slipping and sliding smoothly, without things catching and needing to break, Los Angeles would be moving toward San Francisco at a rate of about 2.5 inches per year, but because rocks catch and stick, that much strain builds instead, and it all gets released at once in massive earthquakes. The whole fault never ruptures at once, though. It tends to operate in three sections - north, central, and south - and the average recurrence interval for all three sections is roughly 150 years. 1906 and 1857 were the last ruptures on the north and central segments respectively. The southern segment, which includes the stretch of fault that is only twelve miles from where I live, has not ruptured since 1769. Fun times ahead...

**Elsinore** - The Elsinore Fault is another right-lateral strike-slip fault that runs parallel to the San Andreas, beginning in Los Angeles and ending just north of the Mexican border. The fault gets its name from the town of Lake Elsinore, which is right on top of it. The town and the lake did indeed get their name from Shakespeare. The Elsinore Fault is very old and not very active either, despite having caused a magnitude 6 event in 1910. Some scientists believe this is because the main plain of plate motion _used_ to involve it and has since switched to the San Andreas. This one's about fifteen miles from my building.

**Hayward Hollister** - The Hayward Fault is yet another right-lateral stirke-slip fault that parallels the San Andreas, though this one is in the Bay Area, running from east of San Jose through Berkeley. It bisects the UC Berkeley campus to the point where the football stadium is literally being torn in half by the fault. While the Hayward has produced some pretty bad quakes in the past, it's currently showing a phenomenon known as aseismic creep, in which the land on either side of the fault does not stick but rather slides, producing significant steady motion without quakes and obviously warping the roads and houses that are on top of the fault.

The town of Hollister does not lie on the Hayward Fault, but rather the Calaveras, yet _another_ right-lateral strike-slip fault that runs parallel to the San Andreas. Hollister is situated about 100 miles southeast of San Francisco, right where the Calaveras branches off of the San Andreas, and resultantly, the town has a disproportionate number of earthquakes, even for California. But Hollister is ultimately more famous for being a classic example of the effects of aseismic creep. There is a path of twisted roads and lopsided houses that follows the fault through the town, and apparently they get packs of geology students that follow that path to try and follow the Calaveras' trace through the town.

**Jacinth** - The San Jacinto fault is the last right-lateral strike-slip fault that I'm going to talk about, I promise. It is one of California's youngest faults, and certainly its most active, though the vast majority of the quakes it causes are far too small to be felt. The San Jacinto branches off of the San Andreas in the city of San Bernardino, then runs southeast to the town of Ocotillo, just north of the Mexican border. It also happens to pass four miles behind where I live, making it my closest major fault. A recent study suggests that in southern California, only 60 percent of the motion between the Pacific and North American plates rests on the San Andreas, with the other 40 on the San Jacinto. That means that when the San Jacinto ruptures in earnest, particularly if it goes on its whole length, it could rival the San Andreas for magnitude and destructive impact.

**Garlock** - The Garlock Fault is the second longest fault in California, and unlike all of the others mentioned so far, it's a _left_-lateral strike-slip fault (everything that crosses it appears to be diverted to the left) that runs _perpendicular _to the San Andreas, intersecting it at the town of Frazier Park and running east through much of the width of the state. It forms the northern boundary of the Mojave Desert, and when you look at a satellite image of California, it and the San Andreas form a very visible and very sharp angle that encloses the desert. The San Andreas is not a completely straight line, and that branch off point for the Garlock also happens to be at the start of the bend in the San Andreas. While the Transverse Ranges were kicked up by the pressure going into this bend, the Garlock developed to help ease some of the pressure by moving land the other way. According to some scientists, the right-lateral motion of the San Andreas and the left-lateral motion of the Garlock is actually rotating whole chunks of land in place. It was absolutely no coincidence that my Garlock character was the one to go against the parallel intents of Andreas, Hayward, and Elsinore! The Garlock is also not currently a very active fault, though it has caused some pretty significant quakes in the past.

**Hosgri** - The Hosgri Fault Zone runs for around 100 miles off the shore of central California, though it's difficult to trace because it consists of many smaller segments that apparently function as a group. Most of those segments are thrust faults, meaning that the land on one side of the fault is pushing upward relative to the other side, though some are back to the good old right-lateral strike-slip. It's not considered a major concern as faults go, and its most significant recorded quake may not have even occurred on the Hosgri at all. I mostly used it as a name because I thought, "Hey, this sounds like a Redwall name."

**Fialko** - This is the only character in the whole story who's named after a scientist, despite the fact that other characters are playing more scientific roles than he is! Yuri Fialko is a geophysicist at UC San Diego who, in June of 2006, published a short but very frightening paper discussing the strain on the southern San Andreas and San Jacinto faults and the average interval between major ruptures. He even includes satellite data to show where the earth is now versus calculations of the amount the San Andreas would move if it weren't locked would put it. The offset he's found is about equal to the amount of torn offset observed after San Francisco and Fort Tejon -- between seven and nine meters. The article is in geologese, but there are simplified summaries on the internet. In short, it says we're due for a Big One, that it's pretty likely within 30 years, and that San Bernardino and Riverside in particular are screwed. Like I said, scary! I figured, though, if I'm going to have a character in the story talk about The Big One, this would be the right name for him to have.

**Falla** - Spanish for "fault."

**Lontano** - Italian term for "from far away" that turns up in music directions every so often. I have actually had a whole story for this character bouncing around in my brain, though with its specifics still unformed. He is, in fact, from somewhere far away from Redwall, so there you go.

**Enruso** - From world-reknowned tenor Enrico Caruso, who happened to be in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake and fire. The real Caruso really did initially panic that the quake had broken his voice, and he really did wander around in his pajamas muttering, "Hell of a town, hell of a town," after the shaking had stopped. It was too good of an anecdote for me to not incorporate into my own story.

**Crysantema** - The opera that I described in chapter two of the story is, essentially, Giacomo Puccini's _Madame Butterfly._ The original title of the play from which the opera was adapted was _Madame Chrysantheme_.

**Lascala** - The theatre at which most of Puccini's operas were premiered was the La Scala Theatre in Milan. I needed a quick reference name for the composer of the opera in the story, so I went with Puccini's theatre to represent him.

**Liedswelt** - Gustav Mahler was not in San Francisco in April of 1906; he was quite busy rehearsing his Sixth Symphony in Essen, Germany. But this is a Mitya story and, seriously, did you expect it to go by without Mahler references? Mehler Liedswelt was a name I came up for a Mahler character whose own novel never ended up getting written. It means, literally, "song's world." Since Mahler said that "a symphony must be like the world," and since one of his most personal songs involves text about how he is "alone in my heaven, my love, my song," I figured it was an appropriate name.

**The Northridge Horde** - In the original _Rhynnsylvania_, Rhynn's horde is simply The Northern Horde. This is horrendously generic name, and since I was working in all kinds of earthquake references anyway, I took the opportunity to make a little change. The magnitude 6.7 17 January 1994 quake that caused serious damage in downtown Los Angeles and surroundings is known as the Northridge Quake, as its epicenter was thought to be located within the neighborhood of Northridge. It was later pinpointed as being in Reseda, the next neighborhood over, but by that point, the quake was already well known as Northridge.

**Darkhill** - The magnitude 6.9 quake that interrupted the World Series and caused serious damage all over the Bay Area on 17 October 1989 actually had its epicenter some 40 miles south of the city under a mountain known as Loma Prieta. I personally think the sound of that Spanish name is appealing. I think the words flow nicely. Its name in English is far less poetic to my ear, though more suitable for Redwallian purposes. "Loma Prieta" translates to "Dark Hill." So there you go.

**Parkfield** - The real life town of Parkfield is a place you have to be trying to get to. Only three roads go there, one of which is unpaved and scary, and the other two of which turn out to be different ends of the same single street that runs through the town. There are maybe a dozen buildings in the whole place, and the sign alongside the street declares that the population consists of eighteen whole people. The Parkfield in the story is actually bigger than the real life one, and more accessible, considering the train. But the real life Parkfield has a claim to fame that draws plenty of geologists (and geeky tourists, such as myself) out on those three roads each year. The town is directly on top of the San Andreas Fault and, more significantly, it has a magnitude 6 quake roughly every 22 years. Once scientists figured this out, they set up all sorts of monitoring equipment, expecting payoff between 1988 and 1993. Which, of course, did not happen. The expected quake finally came in 2004, much to the glee of the geologists. Despite the fact that magnitude 6 is pretty freaking huge, nobody has ever died in a Parkfield quake, the town has never been leveled, and the people who live there are quite proud of their local seismicity. There was really no other name I could give a quake-prone town with knowledgeable inhabitants in this story! Also, there really are a lot of squirrels there.

**The Narrows** - Whittier Narrows is a large park in the city of Whittier, about 20 miles outside of downtown Los Angeles. The 1 October 1987 magnitude 5.9 Whittier Narrows quake, which caused considerable damage in some parts of the Los Angeles basin, had its epicenter in this park.

**Big Bend** - This is the official name that scientists have given the spot where the San Andreas Fault bends in its middle section. No technical terminology here, folks.

**Other References, Chapter By Chapter**

**Chapter One** - An often observed precursor event to significant earthquakes is that animals behave strangely, including things like birds and insects ceasing to make noise. I can't have much peculiar animal behavior in a world where the characters are all humanlike animals themselves, but I could at least make the insects shut up.

**Chapter Two** - The opera that takes place in this chapter is, as I mentioned before, Giacomo Puccini's _Madama Butterfly_, only Redwallized. The real opera deals with Americans being colonial and imperialist in Japan rather than vermin doing that to woodlanders. This said, I described the plot as it actually is, with no alterations.

Jacinth's spazzing out was my way of extending the animals freaking out before earthquakes thing to the more sentient creatures of Mossflower. Just because the population on the whole wouldn't be hit like a real world animal population before an earthquake doesn't mean I had to pass up the chance for some good Redwallish cryptic premonition!

The lights that Aetantim notices briefly out the Infirmary window are a phenomenon known as earthquake lights. Nobody is quite sure why they happen, but before, during, and after some major quakes, some fault lines will give off light, from a dull luminescence to apparently spherical electrical pulses. For a long time, they were only rumored to exist, but then they were both observed and caught on film during a quake in Japan in the mid 20th century. They could possibly be a clue for predicting quakes, though by no means a failure-proof one.

**Chapter Three** - The type of fault in question in this story is right-lateral strike slip. This is not merely for convenience, nor is it just because most of California's faults are this type. I figured this out based on looking at the maps in the beginnings of the Redwall books, and I'll be writing a whole longer article thing about why I think the fault is this type and about the geological processes that could have made it that way. But this said, in a strike slip quake, there is not a huge vertical displacement of earth. There are waves in the ground, which do become visible in a situation upward of magnitude 5, but they are not the enormous scale vertical slips that produce tsunamis. Thus, the ground waves would proceed to make bodies of water incredibly choppy, but not to the point of flinging ships around, particularly not if the epicenter was on land, as in the case of this story. The epicenter of the 1906 San Francisco quake was in the water, and there are some accounts of some ships getting dramatically rocked, but there are accounts of others feeling alarmingly little compared to what was going on on land. Thus, it's wholly possible for a thing like the otters failing to notice the extent of the weird goings on while remaining at sea.

The moles succumb to a phenomenon called liquefaction. This occurs when major fault motion dredges up water from deep within the earth and creates a suspension of soil particles within that water. The ground therefore becomes soft and unstable, and things can very easily sink down into it. In the case of modern day quakes, it's mostly buildings that are demolished by liquefaction, but since the moles were already digging around in soft dirt, I saw no reason why the liquefaction _wouldn't_ cause them a ton of trouble as well.

Enruso and Liedswelt's conversation is basically ripped from a true anecdote about Enrico Caruso and the conductor of the touring production of Bizet's _Carmen_ that happened to have been playing in San Francisco the night before the quake. It was too amusing of a conversation not to use.

There exist plenty of accounts of earthquakes making rivers flow backwards. Perhaps the most dramatic was in the New Madrid, Missouri quakes of 1811-1812. These four events, the smallest estimated at measuring over 7.0 and the largest topping 8.0, managed to make the Mississippi River leap out of its banks, flow backwards, and permanently change its course in some places. If the mighty Mississippi could be so effected, the River Moss could certainly also fall victim.

**Chapter Four** - More earthquake lights! It has been noted that, before some earthquakes, the number of UFO sightings in the region of the quake goes up a little. It has therefore been theorized that people are seeing earthquake lights and mistaking them for UFOs. If the technology in the Mossflower of this story is enough to have trains, then it's also enough for telescopes and wondering about life elsewhere. Thus, a legitimate excuse for Walden to mention aliens!

**Chapter Five** - Garlock smells a faint edge of sulfur in the mist as he wanders on the morning of the quake. This type of smell has been documented as lingering around some fault zones immediately before, during, and after a rupture.

The darting furrows in the ground described in this chapter are known as mole tracks (nevermind that they're chasing a ferret in this story!). They're relatively common when quakes cross more brittle ground, as are open cracks in the earth. These cracks will pull open and pinch shut again with the passing compression waves of the quake. Fault lines themselves do not open up along their middle, but this myth most likely comes from such dramatic surface scars as these mole tracks and cracks. The myth of fault lines swallowing people up also doubtlessly comes from this. There is no documented proof of anyone ever being swallowed by a ground crack caused by an earthquake, though there are plenty of stories. There's also a very specific story from the 1906 San Francisco quake in which a cow fell into a crack which closed around it and left only the tail sticking out. There is, again, no documented proof, though the story is persistent. But there _is_ enough photographic evidence of ground cracks and mole tracks that are easily large enough for someone to fall into that it is not impossible that someone could meet this fate. So I had it happen to poor Falla.

**Chapter Six** - There actually isn't any numerical significance to the specific amount of time the quake took or the time of day that it occurred. I went with morning for dramatic sense (and many major quakes do seem to have occurred in the morning), and with the length of time based on estimates of shaking time for comparable-sized quakes on the same type of fault. I was using San Francisco 1906 and Fort Tejon 1857 as models to some degree; they were estimated at 7.8 and 7.9 respectively, and the estimated shaking time for both is between one and two minutes.

Once again, Enruso's behavior here is based entirely on the real Caruso's behavior. The phrase, "Hell of a town," which Caruso was heard to have uttered, just didn't seem very Redwall to me, so I changed it a little.

As mentioned earlier, the motion of right-lateral strike slip faults makes all objects on the other side of the fault appear directed to the right from where an observer stands, no matter which side of the fault that observer is on. This is what has happened to the road that Hayward and Walden take to Redwall. When they come to the break and deflection, the line along which the deflection is the fault itself, though they do not know this. Maximum recorded displacements for both San Francisco and Fort Tejon were in the ballpark of 9 meters, which is more than enough to throw travelers off even more than the path has been thrown!

**Chapter Seven **- I know you know what the mark Andreas' pen made looks like. Crude seismographic instruments did exist in the later part of the 19th century, but Redwall surely wouldn't have felt a need to be equipped with such a thing before.

**Chapter Eight** - The brief earthquake reference in Mattimeo was how I got the idea to destroy Redwall in a quake to begin with, back in 1998 when I was working on the original _Rhynnsylvania_. If not for those couple of pages from BJ himself, you'd be safely without this big mess of mine!

**Chapter Nine** - Descriptions of surface ruptures along strike slip faults from before anything was known about those faults still include phrases along the lines of the ground being torn and pulled past itself -- very insightful observations!

There are several accounts of trees being split by unfortunate placement on top of faults, mostly from the 1906 San Francisco quake. One such tree in central California, whose halves were not completely detached from each other, did not die from the break, and is apparently still standing. Based on what I've read, the trunk has healed over with bark, but it's still clear that the tree was split and pulled apart by several inches.

**Chapter Ten** - No really nerdy references here. Move along, folks.

**Chapter Eleven **- While mountains like the Himalayas are caused by land colliding and crunching upward, and while ranges like the Cascades are caused by volcanic activity and pushing from underneath, the mountains caused by strike slip faults are pressure and friction ridges, and rippled is the best word I can think of these comparatively smooth peaks. On the ones with less vegetation, strata are sometimes very clearly visible. Sometimes, faulting will cut through forming mountains and displace them from themselves in a formation called a shutter ridge. These are all characteristic of California, and since Mossflower has the same kind of fault, I figured I could transplant some other physical features as well.

The long narrow lakes mentioned in this chapter are called sag ponds. These are formed when motion along faults pulls water upward from deep in the earth. In some cases, the ponds do appear still and unmoving, but along other faults, the water actually does flow as a stream, disguising something dangerous as something totally innocuous.

When one side of a fault becomes abruptly elevated relative to the other, the resulting formation is called a scarp. These are more common with dip slip faults, that is, ones where the primary motion is up and down, but most strike slip faults also have a small vertical component, and over time, the scarps can get pretty big.

**Chapter Twelve **- According to Alma Mahler, she and Gustav were "very shaken" (her word choice, inappropriate that it is) by the news of the 1906 San Francisco quake, which they found out about while in Vienna. According to Alma, though, she and Mahler were more upset about the death of Pierre Curie, which occurred on the same day as the quake. Now, Alma had a tendency to lie about her various husbands and lovers and to make things up and change small details depending on whether she wanted the guy to look better or worse for posterity. I have no doubt that Mahler was upset by the loss of a scientist like Curie, but based on extensive reading about his character and interests as described by people who knew him and were not compulsive liars like Alma, I think he was likely far more freaked out by San Francisco than Alma let on. Mahler essentially worshipped nature, who wrote several symphonies involving themes of good things coming to all of mankind rather than only named individuals, who freaked out for weeks upon reading an article about one man committing suicide. I have no doubt that the concept of a force of nature taking hundreds of lives and demolishing an entire city caught in his brain far more than Alma described. Liedswelt's bit in this chapter is my take on how Mahler might have felt, though Liedswelt has the added big stress of having been there for it.

**Chapter Thirteen** - Though I've moved it from southern California to Mossflower for the sake of this story, the cut open cliff face described in this chapter really does exist. In real life, it happens to be in a roadcut on California route 14 just south of Palmdale. The cut runs straight through the San Andreas Fault's scarp and exposes dramatically twisted and warped layers of multicolored rock. To me, it's absolute proof of the art in nature.

**Chapter Fourteen** - This was really not a smart thing for Aetantim to do in light of aftershocks, but the obligatory Redwallian artifacts had to be found!

**Chapter Fifteen** - If "It's nobeast's fault but yours, Andreas" was the only pun you caught in this chapter, you should consider yourself very very lucky. But if you're morbidly curious, the seismology articles on Wikipedia should be able to tell you what you need to know. But don't say I didn't warn you, and if you look them all up, you no longer have a right to smack me for any of them.

As for other references:

I had to have Elsinore get in her requisite line from _Hamlet_ somewhere.

Garlock tells Hayward to go back to his badger fort. Tejon is the Spanish word for badger, thus Fort Tejon is Fort Badger.

I also had to have some sort of reference to the California Falling Into The Ocean urban legend. Which is nothing more than that. The part of California west of the Fault _will_ move from where it is now, but it will slide past the further inland parts rather than drifting off to sea. In several million years, San Francisco and Los Angeles will only be about 50 miles apart, but neither one is going to end up under water.

Collapsed chimneys are basically the most common form of earthquake damage. Because chimneys are narrow and basically unsupported, they're the first thing to go. With a quake as large as the one in this story, if you've only lost the chimney and it fell away from the rest of the house, you're in very good shape.

**Chapter Sixteen** - The piece of music that Liedswelt is describing is, in fact, Mahler's Second Symphony. The text that the chorus sings is directly snipped from the last movement, though I've shortened it a great deal for my purposes here. There really is an earthquake in this symphony, though. The last movement describes the time between the Apocalypse and the resurrection of humanity. Death happens in the earlier movements, then there is a massive crescendoed drumroll that Mahler described as, "A trembling passes over the earth. Listen to the drum roll and your hair will stand on end!" The earthquake allows for the dead to come out of the earth, zombielike, and have a processional to the point of resurrection. Yet I was actually planning on including references to this piece based on the text alone, since there is talk of trembling and rising from the dust, but finding out that Mahler actually included his own earthquake references clinched my including it in this story.

**Chapter Seventeen** - The number of aftershocks following a major quake decreases proportionally to how much time has elapsed. The second day has half as many as the first, the tenth day has one tenth as many. With really large quakes, aftershocks can continue sparsely for decades. Some scientists think that quakes that happen around Charleston, South Carolina, in the present are still aftershocks to a quake estimated at being magnitude 6.6 to 7.3 that happened there in 1886. No such formula has been determined for magnitudes, though; large aftershocks are more likely closer to the main event, but that can come seemingly out of nowhere later on. The one that meant the end of stuff for Garlock in this story was soon enough after the mainshock that it shouldn't have even counted as unexpected.

**Chapter Eighteen** - As far as I know, no entire civilization has moved away from its homeland because of an earthquake, but hey, this is still fiction here!

**The Title** - This comes from a line in Natalie Merchant's song "San Andreas Fault." I like the song in its own right, though I admittedly initially pulled it off of iTunes because of the title alone. The line in question goes, "Oh promised land, oh wicked ground, build a dream, tear it down..."

**Time and Place**

I enjoy bringing in real world spatial and temporal connections to my stories. This should not come across as surprising considering I have a ton of characters who are personified days of the year, and I have made an effort to align anniversaries or trips to significant places with work on stories in the past. This story is no different. In fact, I think I've gotten worse.

The entire story was written within five miles of an active fault. Yes, California has more than its fair share, but there are plenty of places in the state that have a larger distance than five miles to the next fault. Part of chapter three was written while I was sitting basically on top of the San Andreas in San Bernardino. I would have written more of the chapter there if it hadn't gotten dark. I felt no earthquakes in the whole span while I was writing this story, though I felt my first the day after I finished it.

I started writing this on 1 November 2006, as an attempt at NaNoWriMo. I failed to get up to 50,000 even when all was said and done, but I didn't even finish the whole effort within November. The story was completed on 9 January 2007, the 150th anniversary of the Fort Tejon earthquake.


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